So, because I became overjoyed and mesmerized with the 2-string shuffles that my teacher gave me last week, this week he printed out all kinds of songs that use roughly the same pattern, so I expect to sink even deeper into it this coming week. I love my guitar teacher. And he always gives me one rather ambitious piece that uses the technique we're learning but at a rather advanced level. I love this too - it gives me something to aspire to.
The good thing about learning guitar in the age of YouTube is that in an instant you can find film footage of the original artist playing the piece, watch their hands, get the rhythms down, realize that it's actually okay to flub some bits as long as you play expressively, that they were pretty much just making it up as they went along anyway, that kind of thing.
But the bad thing about learning guitar in the age of YouTube is right at the top on the right hand side of the page when you're watching your heroes play the new song you're supposed to learn, there's inevitably a video called "10 year old kid plays [whatever the song is]".
Viz.:
Eddie Van Halen playing Eruption
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_lwocmL9dQ
10 year old kid playing Eruption
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huUVXWEM7yQ
Steve Ray Vaughn playing Pride and Joy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIpIsM4KTLc
12 year old kid playing Pride and Joy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJVqBPode5k
James Hetfield from Metallica playing One
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5BoQ1qPPRs
8 year old kid playing One
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDDV4hNv3j4
This was starting to make me discouraged, but tonight I came up with a brilliant plan - as soon as I get these songs worked up to a certain standard, I'm going to post some response videos - "45 year old woman plays Eruption solo", "45 year old woman plays Pride and Joy", but also then "45 year old plays her own blues composition because she has life experience and can express the emotions she's earned from living through song".
For 45 years old, that's rill mature, Ellen.
Still, it gives me inspiration!
Friday, October 31, 2008
Happy Halloween
Beautiful clear air. Temperatures so warm you only need a sweater, no coat or scarf. Trees with glowing yellow leaves, other trees with orange leaves that match the pumpkins. Pumpkins sitting, welcoming, on porches. Little snags of kids walking together on sidewalks between friendly wooden houses. Always a few young ones and one big one. Lots of black. Lots of red wigs, white face paint. A few little ghosts in white sheets. Everyone with a bag for treats. Stopped at stop lights, waiting to cross to a new crop of houses to hit for treats, the dog on a leash with them. A sombrero and a purple face. An older girl dressed like a cheerleader, a very little boy dressed like a Green Bay Packer. It's so light, it's so early, but you find out the kids have been off school for two days, so they probably couldn't wait. You wonder how many streets they cover, how late they stay out, how much candy will be in their bags at the end.
Oneida Street Bridge, driving south home from the guitar lesson. Look to the right, over the water and Fratello's, and nearby the boats docked on the north bank that you've been eying for your hunt task. Streaky sky. Pink to deep red. Sunset over the water, and up high enough, in a car driving over a bridge, to see a view, briefly. Grey bridge, silver water, yellow sandstone buildings, orange leaves, red sky.
Oneida Street Bridge, driving south home from the guitar lesson. Look to the right, over the water and Fratello's, and nearby the boats docked on the north bank that you've been eying for your hunt task. Streaky sky. Pink to deep red. Sunset over the water, and up high enough, in a car driving over a bridge, to see a view, briefly. Grey bridge, silver water, yellow sandstone buildings, orange leaves, red sky.
Compassion fatigue
I was driving home and switched over to the Wisconsin Public Radio station out of Green Bay that is all talk, all the time. A woman was delivering a news story from a foreign land, I missed the first bit so I don't know which one. She had an oddly cheerful voice for the subject matter - "...motorcycle taxis that carry passengers side-saddle to their destination, but most of the citizens travel by foot. Life is bustling, but these are all refugees in a relocation camp. A few miles away the streets are quiet. No one there but dead bodies, and the rebel soldiers who killed them..."
I turned it off. Is that wrong of me? But this was news from a country far away from here, where I don't know anyone (probably don't even know anyone who knows anyone), and the killing is not my fault, and just now, today, there's nothing I can do about it.
So, I rationalized at the time, continuing to listen would serve no purpose at all except entertainment, and it's wrong to get entertainment value out of a village full of dead bodies and the soldiers who killed them.
But then, the voice of my philosopher friends inside my head said, first of all it's important to be aware of these goings-on in the world and not turn a blind ear to them. And beyond awareness, it's your moral obligation to do what you can to stop it. You should have listened all the way to the end of the story and if they didn't say again what country it was in you should have called the station to find out, and then, right then, you should have done whatever you could to stop the killing, including running off and joining the Peace Corps, alerting the media and insisting that they make a big deal about it, forming a non-profit fund-raising group, organizing people, creating urgency in your community, working hard. As a human being, you have a serious and incontrovertible moral obligation to do whatever you can to stop this kind of thing happening, even if, no, especially if, you don't know the people and don't know anyone who knows them.
Piss off, I said to my inner philosopher. And drove off listening to something else.
I turned it off. Is that wrong of me? But this was news from a country far away from here, where I don't know anyone (probably don't even know anyone who knows anyone), and the killing is not my fault, and just now, today, there's nothing I can do about it.
So, I rationalized at the time, continuing to listen would serve no purpose at all except entertainment, and it's wrong to get entertainment value out of a village full of dead bodies and the soldiers who killed them.
But then, the voice of my philosopher friends inside my head said, first of all it's important to be aware of these goings-on in the world and not turn a blind ear to them. And beyond awareness, it's your moral obligation to do what you can to stop it. You should have listened all the way to the end of the story and if they didn't say again what country it was in you should have called the station to find out, and then, right then, you should have done whatever you could to stop the killing, including running off and joining the Peace Corps, alerting the media and insisting that they make a big deal about it, forming a non-profit fund-raising group, organizing people, creating urgency in your community, working hard. As a human being, you have a serious and incontrovertible moral obligation to do whatever you can to stop this kind of thing happening, even if, no, especially if, you don't know the people and don't know anyone who knows them.
Piss off, I said to my inner philosopher. And drove off listening to something else.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
night mall, morning mall
Tonight I was at the mall, briefly. I arrived about a half hour before it closed. Most of the people around were either roving bands of teenagers or dodgy.
I was in the ladies room near the food court and it had the general dishevelment of the end of a day - paper towels on the floor, toilet paper almost out in the near stalls, and various sorts of bodily grime on the seats so you had to try several stalls before you found one you could work with - a quick wipe here and there, but no need for mops or industrial solvents, kind of thing.
It made me think of the process of cleaning this bathroom, and whole mall, to get ready for the start of a new shopping day. And I thought of the workers standing there in the morning, about five minutes before opening, the toilet paper all stocked, the surfaces all gleaming, the chairs all pushed in under the food court tables and lined up in neat rows, the overhead lights gleaming off the surfaces. Ready for the shoppers on a new day.
I was in the ladies room near the food court and it had the general dishevelment of the end of a day - paper towels on the floor, toilet paper almost out in the near stalls, and various sorts of bodily grime on the seats so you had to try several stalls before you found one you could work with - a quick wipe here and there, but no need for mops or industrial solvents, kind of thing.
It made me think of the process of cleaning this bathroom, and whole mall, to get ready for the start of a new shopping day. And I thought of the workers standing there in the morning, about five minutes before opening, the toilet paper all stocked, the surfaces all gleaming, the chairs all pushed in under the food court tables and lined up in neat rows, the overhead lights gleaming off the surfaces. Ready for the shoppers on a new day.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Today's accomplishments - not bad for a Monday
So I still haven't sorted out a new exercise regime, but set the alarm early this morning nonetheless. Alarms, actually - since it's now really super dark when I wake up in the morning, the earth having turned on its axis quite far away from the sun being as I live in Wisconsin (and it will get worse before it gets better, bring on the solstice...), I needed to go back to the technique I was using when I moved here, which was to set one alarm near the bed and then set my phone alarm for five minutes later and leave it in the living room. I therefore had to get up, actually out of bed, and walk a fair distance to make the annoying noise stop, and if I just stayed upright I could get ready and be at work on time.
So I did that this morning but hadn't made a firm decision on a gym to go to, sat around watching CNN as if it was crucial that I catch up on all the stories, and then did finally get myself to go along to the little gym at my apartment complex. Only had to put a sports bra on under the pj's, and some shoes, basically, so it was pretty low commitment. Did a basic sort of routine with some cardio and some - light, low reps - hand weights. A nice old lady came in about half-way, and asked if I was done with the treadmill but then got on the bike and didn't want the treadmill until I was back on it doing intervals. She was superciliously polite about it - "I don't want to interrupt you at all, I can go and do something else for a while" - but I was definitely an intruder on her personal morning exercise. Next time I should go to one of my gyms, where there are enough treadmills for everyone so you aren't in anyone's way. But still. Got it done. Even got red in the face and felt like I had exerted some energy.
Astrobarry has told me that this week I need to stop worrying about all my crushes and social life and get some work done (with vague threats about regretting it soon if I don't). So I've been following his advice - keeping the TV turned off, not coming in to see what's new on my Facebook homepage since five minutes ago when I last checked. Instead just getting on with a task that qualifies more as "work". At my day job, I was doing this today as well, and got lots of stuff done - a horrible PowerPoint presentation that I don't want to do in the first place and is on it's about 6th revision, plus routing lots of approvals and image files and data files for various smaller projects. Plus some high-level schmoozing to see if they will create for me the job I want in the new structure (closer to it all the time, and there are so many positive opportunities that I'm willing to hang out for a while doing a non-perfect job until it all comes together).
This evening went, as I do every month, with a friend from work to this month's film in the international film series. This was a slow but very beautiful film from Singapore called Be With Me. It was very slow and deliberate and quiet, which made it hard to gracefully eat the pizza we'd ordered (it's one of those cinemas where they bring you drinks and food and there are tables in front of all the seats). He was quite affected by it, and didn't want to talk about it or do any analysis afterward. Once again I regretted that we're not allowed to touch anyone that we know from work, because the boy looked like he needed a hug.
I ripped all my recent acquisitions over the weekend in aid of the soundtrack for the party (which went okay, by the way, nine people out of 40 invited, but everyone had a nice time, the only sort of drag thing was that unlike my two birthday parties in Sydney not one boy was hanging around at the end hoping I'd invite him home to spend the night with me - but I guess you can't have fans like that all the time - but still, I had to clean everything up and drag stuff back to my house all by myself. Even a friend or family member would stay with you until everything was cleaned up, but here I don't have one of those - yet). So I've been listening to the iPod in the car instead of the CDs, and it does have poorer sound quality, but it's nice to be able to forward and pick different things on the fly (literally - clicking up through the menus to get the setting off "shuffle songs" while going nearly 70 mph). I'm still completely obsessed with the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, have I mentioned that before? And so now I can click easily back and forth from their early, more straightforwardly psychedelic work on the album "B.R.M.C." to the similarly atmospheric but more accessible song structures of "Take Them On, On Your Own". The two songs that especially interest me in their similarities are "Whatever Happened To (Rock and Roll)" and very grand song that comes last on "TTOOYO" that makes the whole album listening experience have a crescendo and denouement like the very best constructed Aristotelean dramas (am I going on a bit now), the song "Heart + Soul". The later one, Heart + Soul, has similar rhythm in the guitars but so much more going on musically. The boys actually get better as they go along - but there are songs on every album that just thoroughly take my breath away. Not to mention how Mr Peter Hayes looks at :43 seconds in the video for Berlin. Sigh.
So B.R.M.C. is helping me as an outlet for these moony romantic feelings that have sort of been haunting me lately. When I have grand, oceany emotions to feel, they provide the music for it, and a safe target so I don't end up with irresponsible crushes on innocent bystanders and passersby. Being prone to moony romantic feelings is a bit of a liability in life. But it's the kind of thing one can learn to control, with patience and discipline.
Right, Barry. Back to work.
So I did that this morning but hadn't made a firm decision on a gym to go to, sat around watching CNN as if it was crucial that I catch up on all the stories, and then did finally get myself to go along to the little gym at my apartment complex. Only had to put a sports bra on under the pj's, and some shoes, basically, so it was pretty low commitment. Did a basic sort of routine with some cardio and some - light, low reps - hand weights. A nice old lady came in about half-way, and asked if I was done with the treadmill but then got on the bike and didn't want the treadmill until I was back on it doing intervals. She was superciliously polite about it - "I don't want to interrupt you at all, I can go and do something else for a while" - but I was definitely an intruder on her personal morning exercise. Next time I should go to one of my gyms, where there are enough treadmills for everyone so you aren't in anyone's way. But still. Got it done. Even got red in the face and felt like I had exerted some energy.
Astrobarry has told me that this week I need to stop worrying about all my crushes and social life and get some work done (with vague threats about regretting it soon if I don't). So I've been following his advice - keeping the TV turned off, not coming in to see what's new on my Facebook homepage since five minutes ago when I last checked. Instead just getting on with a task that qualifies more as "work". At my day job, I was doing this today as well, and got lots of stuff done - a horrible PowerPoint presentation that I don't want to do in the first place and is on it's about 6th revision, plus routing lots of approvals and image files and data files for various smaller projects. Plus some high-level schmoozing to see if they will create for me the job I want in the new structure (closer to it all the time, and there are so many positive opportunities that I'm willing to hang out for a while doing a non-perfect job until it all comes together).
This evening went, as I do every month, with a friend from work to this month's film in the international film series. This was a slow but very beautiful film from Singapore called Be With Me. It was very slow and deliberate and quiet, which made it hard to gracefully eat the pizza we'd ordered (it's one of those cinemas where they bring you drinks and food and there are tables in front of all the seats). He was quite affected by it, and didn't want to talk about it or do any analysis afterward. Once again I regretted that we're not allowed to touch anyone that we know from work, because the boy looked like he needed a hug.
I ripped all my recent acquisitions over the weekend in aid of the soundtrack for the party (which went okay, by the way, nine people out of 40 invited, but everyone had a nice time, the only sort of drag thing was that unlike my two birthday parties in Sydney not one boy was hanging around at the end hoping I'd invite him home to spend the night with me - but I guess you can't have fans like that all the time - but still, I had to clean everything up and drag stuff back to my house all by myself. Even a friend or family member would stay with you until everything was cleaned up, but here I don't have one of those - yet). So I've been listening to the iPod in the car instead of the CDs, and it does have poorer sound quality, but it's nice to be able to forward and pick different things on the fly (literally - clicking up through the menus to get the setting off "shuffle songs" while going nearly 70 mph). I'm still completely obsessed with the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, have I mentioned that before? And so now I can click easily back and forth from their early, more straightforwardly psychedelic work on the album "B.R.M.C." to the similarly atmospheric but more accessible song structures of "Take Them On, On Your Own". The two songs that especially interest me in their similarities are "Whatever Happened To (Rock and Roll)" and very grand song that comes last on "TTOOYO" that makes the whole album listening experience have a crescendo and denouement like the very best constructed Aristotelean dramas (am I going on a bit now), the song "Heart + Soul". The later one, Heart + Soul, has similar rhythm in the guitars but so much more going on musically. The boys actually get better as they go along - but there are songs on every album that just thoroughly take my breath away. Not to mention how Mr Peter Hayes looks at :43 seconds in the video for Berlin. Sigh.
So B.R.M.C. is helping me as an outlet for these moony romantic feelings that have sort of been haunting me lately. When I have grand, oceany emotions to feel, they provide the music for it, and a safe target so I don't end up with irresponsible crushes on innocent bystanders and passersby. Being prone to moony romantic feelings is a bit of a liability in life. But it's the kind of thing one can learn to control, with patience and discipline.
Right, Barry. Back to work.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Today's accomplishments - Saturday errands
Dragged myself out of bed and it was only 9:30 - not bad.
One load of white laundry, one load of dark, and got all the dishes done, including the things that have to be washed by hand.
Turned off the TV - trying to have a TV free day, the exceptions were some home decorating programs while exercising and a little bit of Fast Times at Ridgemont High while eating dinner. Next step is Facebook free day, and I will have so much spare time I won't know what to do with myself.
Exercised at the little gym in my apartment complex - a bit of treadmill, a bit of hand weights. Definitely did not push myself to the limit but it's been more than a week since I last met with any professional trainer since my last one chucked a spazz and quit the gym I've been going to - he left a phone message to see if I was interested in training privately, but I don't know if his regime is what I'm looking for, and it doesn't really make sense for me to pay extra when I already get gym membership for free at work, and another gym membership that is already paid for.
I did realize that exercise, especially pretty intense exercise that you do in a serious way, is good for the ego. I've been walking around with the knowledge that I'm going in the direction of being fit and strong with lots of cardiopulmonary stamina. This makes me feel like I merit attention. I admit it, and I think I've talked about this before - if the stereotype of men is that they think about sex every three seconds, then the corresponding stereotype of women is that they worry about their attractiveness every three seconds, and I had to admit it but I think it's true. And so, when every three seconds the worry would come up, then I could rest back with satisfaction on the knowledge that I was becoming babe-like and did not need to worry. Now I do, again. I was at lunch and reading a book and felt my sides being a bit muffin-like over the top of my jeans, and wasn't able to rely on my intense training regime for comfort that it would soon be under control. So I may have to rethink this whole thing yet again. But at least today I got out there and did something. Did find my lungs burned after only 10 minutes of treadmill intervals, and I think it's still just fall allergies - maybe even just from bonfires of fallen leaves. So, for that reason I'm looking forward to the first snow, and we'll see if things are better. So much to manage. Sigh. But I'm working on it.
Went and bought fancy wine for my party tomorrow, at the fancy wine shop near me. Since I had been there a few weeks ago, I knew exactly what reds to ask for, most of them by name. For the whites I knew what grapes and what combination of flavors (dry, smooth, citrussy, etc), but had him recommend the particular bottles to me. I love, love, love knowing what I'm talking about when I'm in a fancy wine shop. Most of it you pick up just from living in Australia, like knowing about cricket and Parliamentary models of government. But then some of it was hard work from going to fancy restaurants and special event fancy meals with fancy menus, and days spent tooling around wineries and then reading that James Halliday book on varietals in the evenings before going to sleep, as if it was a novel. It goes in. I love that I can keep that knowledge with me, and immediately start talking the talk in a brand new shop in a brand new town in a brand new country. I love that I knew that it mattered that they had Reidel glasswear, the first time I went in there. It makes me feel old, and experienced, but also like I have been living my life well in some respects and have something of value I can take away from my travels.
I was aiming for the grocery store right after this to get the rest of the stuff for the party, but hadn't had lunch yet, and so was aiming for the Tom's Diner for a hamburger on the way, but you can't turn left into the road that goes past Tom's from Kensington any more, so I turned left on College Ave and was aiming to circle back and go to Tom's the right way, but found myself headed downtown. Ah well. I went down a road I'd never been down before, Talulah St. I remember last time I was in Tom's for a late afternoon hamburger, I noticed a street sign on the inside of the diner, and photos of their original location, which was somewhere on Talulah St. So I drove up it to see if I could find the spot. Did not, because it was all residential, with 60's boring ranch style houses down near me, gradually becoming more historical square wooden Wisconsiny farmhouse-houses. All the houses had mature trees, and all of them were all colors from canary yellow to orange to pink to deep red. I noticed how the leaves on the ground are the thing that is making the town look autumy. I saw a couple walking, the guy in a hooded sweatshirt, with leaves on the lawns all around them and it stabbed at my heart - this combination of aesthetic appreciation of the now and stabbing nostalgia for my childhood and the landscape that I've been away from for so long, and pining for a future time when I would be on a walk in these leaves with someone I love and missing them now. At one point I crossed a familiar road on the diagonal when I thought I had been going parallel to it. I knew enough to pick my way back to a road that crosses the river and then goes up a hill into town.
I parked where I always park, down the road a bit from the park and just out of range of the parking meters, which are still active on a Saturday. It was cold, especially walking on College Ave itself with the wind whipping straight at you from somewhere near Missoula. I regretted not bringing a scarf, was glad I had brought some gloves, and thought back to weekend afternoons when I first walked this walk when I had just moved here, and what a startling shock the temperatures were. I took a shortcut through the independent bookstore and bought something on the way through. I headed for the groovy cafe where the college kids hang out, the one with the yellow awning whose name I never remember. There were so many groovy college kids that there were no tables free, so I left again and headed to my usual haunt of the Copper Rock.
But stopped at a gifty shop that seemed to have furniture that might be antique. I asked the very extremely nice proprietresses if they knew a good refinisher, and the one who did got the phonebook out and copied out his name and phone number for me. In a similar gifty store like this in Sydney, the clerks, although they'd probably be helpful, would also be full of attitude. After getting the refinisher's number, I strolled around the shop for a bit, and wanted most of what they had. Ended up just buying a scented candle, because they had one burning near the cash register - I thought it might be "pumpkin pie spice" and thought it would be lovely and autumny in my house, but it turned out to be "banana nut bread". Before putting it in a bag for me (a paper bag with little handles), she wrapped it in decorative tissue paper, so it was like an elegant present. What a girly thing to buy, but it made me happy.
The Copper Rock was packed as well - hanging out in a cafe is just the thing to do on a wet, overcast chilly October Saturday afternoon - but my timing worked out and I scored a booth all to myself. Tried to order a short black - I said "I'll have an espresso coffee" and made a little "short black" gesture with my hand. "A 'Rocky Mountain High'?" the little boy behind the counter said. "Um, ha ha," I said in return, and looked in puzzlement over my shoulder at their coffee menu on the wall. "A shot of espresso in a coffee? Just the twelve ounces?" Wait. This was a question they ask for long blacks. "No, just the short..." and I did the hand gesture again. "Oh, an espresso." Turns out an "espresso coffee" is a long black with a short black in it, or a long black made with coffee instead of hot water. Not what I wanted, although I keep it in mind for the day when it's what I need. I explained to the little boy that I'd lived in Australia for a long time and all the coffees are called different things. This was an easier conversation that it usually is, and I was glad that I explained my space-alien-ness to him. He said that Sydney is someplace he really wants to go. I hope he gets there, but he probably won't remember what all the coffees are called.
Read a book, drank the short black/espresso when it arrived, had a fabulous sandwich called a "Mussolini" which is chicken and sundried something or other on a grilled panini with some other stuff melted in it. Tried to feel fabulous and not worry about my attractiveness. Felt quite at home, which again is a change from the first few weekends when I was hanging out downtown. Stayed until it was actually about 5pm.
Made it to the grocery store to shop for the party, and bought all the same things I used to have for my birthday parties in Surry Hills. I don't know how many people will attend this party tomorrow, might be as few as three or four although I invited 40 and included partners and children. I have enough to feed an army. I always get stuff I like in case there are leftovers. I got some crappy wine at the grocery store to supplement the fancy wine. I brought it in my car to the venue where the party will be held, and kept having flashes of being part of the family who's getting ready for a wedding the next day. "Are you all going over now? Should we take the stuff over tonight and set it up? Sure, I can just run get ice in the morning. Will it be alright overnight? Sure, we've got the only key, what would happen?" It was a delightful feeling.
I was reading a friend's blog recently (hi, Bunny), and he gave a shout out to his favorite time-management guru, and I went to the said guru's website and read the first chapter of his new book which is online there. Naturally all the really helpful secrets are in the book itself and not available for free online, but the little nuggetlette of wisdom that I took away from the intro was when he was talking about our irrational brain. The rational brain can make all sorts of plans or long-term objectives but the irrational brain classifies activities into threats or delicious treats, and then avoids them or spends too much time procrastinating doing them, in turn. I usually hate grocery shopping and sometimes avoid it for weeks even though I have nothing but dry rice noodles and a few sugar packets in my cupboard to eat. However, shopping for a party that I'm throwing is a delicious treat, and I loved it.
Now I'm home doing iPod management in anticipation of setting up some playlists for the party. I got a new set of Klipsch iPod speakers just for the occasion, and I'm excited to be able to DJ, but there will be some hard decisions to make - "What kind of music will work well with this crowd" is just as puzzling a question as "are these enough dips?", when you haven't hosted a party for this particular crowd before.
Tomorrow will tell. More later!
One load of white laundry, one load of dark, and got all the dishes done, including the things that have to be washed by hand.
Turned off the TV - trying to have a TV free day, the exceptions were some home decorating programs while exercising and a little bit of Fast Times at Ridgemont High while eating dinner. Next step is Facebook free day, and I will have so much spare time I won't know what to do with myself.
Exercised at the little gym in my apartment complex - a bit of treadmill, a bit of hand weights. Definitely did not push myself to the limit but it's been more than a week since I last met with any professional trainer since my last one chucked a spazz and quit the gym I've been going to - he left a phone message to see if I was interested in training privately, but I don't know if his regime is what I'm looking for, and it doesn't really make sense for me to pay extra when I already get gym membership for free at work, and another gym membership that is already paid for.
I did realize that exercise, especially pretty intense exercise that you do in a serious way, is good for the ego. I've been walking around with the knowledge that I'm going in the direction of being fit and strong with lots of cardiopulmonary stamina. This makes me feel like I merit attention. I admit it, and I think I've talked about this before - if the stereotype of men is that they think about sex every three seconds, then the corresponding stereotype of women is that they worry about their attractiveness every three seconds, and I had to admit it but I think it's true. And so, when every three seconds the worry would come up, then I could rest back with satisfaction on the knowledge that I was becoming babe-like and did not need to worry. Now I do, again. I was at lunch and reading a book and felt my sides being a bit muffin-like over the top of my jeans, and wasn't able to rely on my intense training regime for comfort that it would soon be under control. So I may have to rethink this whole thing yet again. But at least today I got out there and did something. Did find my lungs burned after only 10 minutes of treadmill intervals, and I think it's still just fall allergies - maybe even just from bonfires of fallen leaves. So, for that reason I'm looking forward to the first snow, and we'll see if things are better. So much to manage. Sigh. But I'm working on it.
Went and bought fancy wine for my party tomorrow, at the fancy wine shop near me. Since I had been there a few weeks ago, I knew exactly what reds to ask for, most of them by name. For the whites I knew what grapes and what combination of flavors (dry, smooth, citrussy, etc), but had him recommend the particular bottles to me. I love, love, love knowing what I'm talking about when I'm in a fancy wine shop. Most of it you pick up just from living in Australia, like knowing about cricket and Parliamentary models of government. But then some of it was hard work from going to fancy restaurants and special event fancy meals with fancy menus, and days spent tooling around wineries and then reading that James Halliday book on varietals in the evenings before going to sleep, as if it was a novel. It goes in. I love that I can keep that knowledge with me, and immediately start talking the talk in a brand new shop in a brand new town in a brand new country. I love that I knew that it mattered that they had Reidel glasswear, the first time I went in there. It makes me feel old, and experienced, but also like I have been living my life well in some respects and have something of value I can take away from my travels.
I was aiming for the grocery store right after this to get the rest of the stuff for the party, but hadn't had lunch yet, and so was aiming for the Tom's Diner for a hamburger on the way, but you can't turn left into the road that goes past Tom's from Kensington any more, so I turned left on College Ave and was aiming to circle back and go to Tom's the right way, but found myself headed downtown. Ah well. I went down a road I'd never been down before, Talulah St. I remember last time I was in Tom's for a late afternoon hamburger, I noticed a street sign on the inside of the diner, and photos of their original location, which was somewhere on Talulah St. So I drove up it to see if I could find the spot. Did not, because it was all residential, with 60's boring ranch style houses down near me, gradually becoming more historical square wooden Wisconsiny farmhouse-houses. All the houses had mature trees, and all of them were all colors from canary yellow to orange to pink to deep red. I noticed how the leaves on the ground are the thing that is making the town look autumy. I saw a couple walking, the guy in a hooded sweatshirt, with leaves on the lawns all around them and it stabbed at my heart - this combination of aesthetic appreciation of the now and stabbing nostalgia for my childhood and the landscape that I've been away from for so long, and pining for a future time when I would be on a walk in these leaves with someone I love and missing them now. At one point I crossed a familiar road on the diagonal when I thought I had been going parallel to it. I knew enough to pick my way back to a road that crosses the river and then goes up a hill into town.
I parked where I always park, down the road a bit from the park and just out of range of the parking meters, which are still active on a Saturday. It was cold, especially walking on College Ave itself with the wind whipping straight at you from somewhere near Missoula. I regretted not bringing a scarf, was glad I had brought some gloves, and thought back to weekend afternoons when I first walked this walk when I had just moved here, and what a startling shock the temperatures were. I took a shortcut through the independent bookstore and bought something on the way through. I headed for the groovy cafe where the college kids hang out, the one with the yellow awning whose name I never remember. There were so many groovy college kids that there were no tables free, so I left again and headed to my usual haunt of the Copper Rock.
But stopped at a gifty shop that seemed to have furniture that might be antique. I asked the very extremely nice proprietresses if they knew a good refinisher, and the one who did got the phonebook out and copied out his name and phone number for me. In a similar gifty store like this in Sydney, the clerks, although they'd probably be helpful, would also be full of attitude. After getting the refinisher's number, I strolled around the shop for a bit, and wanted most of what they had. Ended up just buying a scented candle, because they had one burning near the cash register - I thought it might be "pumpkin pie spice" and thought it would be lovely and autumny in my house, but it turned out to be "banana nut bread". Before putting it in a bag for me (a paper bag with little handles), she wrapped it in decorative tissue paper, so it was like an elegant present. What a girly thing to buy, but it made me happy.
The Copper Rock was packed as well - hanging out in a cafe is just the thing to do on a wet, overcast chilly October Saturday afternoon - but my timing worked out and I scored a booth all to myself. Tried to order a short black - I said "I'll have an espresso coffee" and made a little "short black" gesture with my hand. "A 'Rocky Mountain High'?" the little boy behind the counter said. "Um, ha ha," I said in return, and looked in puzzlement over my shoulder at their coffee menu on the wall. "A shot of espresso in a coffee? Just the twelve ounces?" Wait. This was a question they ask for long blacks. "No, just the short..." and I did the hand gesture again. "Oh, an espresso." Turns out an "espresso coffee" is a long black with a short black in it, or a long black made with coffee instead of hot water. Not what I wanted, although I keep it in mind for the day when it's what I need. I explained to the little boy that I'd lived in Australia for a long time and all the coffees are called different things. This was an easier conversation that it usually is, and I was glad that I explained my space-alien-ness to him. He said that Sydney is someplace he really wants to go. I hope he gets there, but he probably won't remember what all the coffees are called.
Read a book, drank the short black/espresso when it arrived, had a fabulous sandwich called a "Mussolini" which is chicken and sundried something or other on a grilled panini with some other stuff melted in it. Tried to feel fabulous and not worry about my attractiveness. Felt quite at home, which again is a change from the first few weekends when I was hanging out downtown. Stayed until it was actually about 5pm.
Made it to the grocery store to shop for the party, and bought all the same things I used to have for my birthday parties in Surry Hills. I don't know how many people will attend this party tomorrow, might be as few as three or four although I invited 40 and included partners and children. I have enough to feed an army. I always get stuff I like in case there are leftovers. I got some crappy wine at the grocery store to supplement the fancy wine. I brought it in my car to the venue where the party will be held, and kept having flashes of being part of the family who's getting ready for a wedding the next day. "Are you all going over now? Should we take the stuff over tonight and set it up? Sure, I can just run get ice in the morning. Will it be alright overnight? Sure, we've got the only key, what would happen?" It was a delightful feeling.
I was reading a friend's blog recently (hi, Bunny), and he gave a shout out to his favorite time-management guru, and I went to the said guru's website and read the first chapter of his new book which is online there. Naturally all the really helpful secrets are in the book itself and not available for free online, but the little nuggetlette of wisdom that I took away from the intro was when he was talking about our irrational brain. The rational brain can make all sorts of plans or long-term objectives but the irrational brain classifies activities into threats or delicious treats, and then avoids them or spends too much time procrastinating doing them, in turn. I usually hate grocery shopping and sometimes avoid it for weeks even though I have nothing but dry rice noodles and a few sugar packets in my cupboard to eat. However, shopping for a party that I'm throwing is a delicious treat, and I loved it.
Now I'm home doing iPod management in anticipation of setting up some playlists for the party. I got a new set of Klipsch iPod speakers just for the occasion, and I'm excited to be able to DJ, but there will be some hard decisions to make - "What kind of music will work well with this crowd" is just as puzzling a question as "are these enough dips?", when you haven't hosted a party for this particular crowd before.
Tomorrow will tell. More later!
non-recurring dream
I was watching the home decorating channel and they showed a clip of a guy knocking out a basement staircase, as part of a renovation. It made me think of being in a basement with no stairs, and how what was several seconds ago so easy that you took it for granted, i.e. getting up to the next floor, would now be impossibly challenging unless you had thought to take a ladder down with you first. And even then, to climb a ladder to get between floors in your own house would certainly be much more challenging that just running up the stairs.
This thought reminded me of a recurring theme that I used to have in lots of dreams - that I was living in a house where you had to climb ladders or edge along precarious ledges to get to the top floor. Or where you had to squeeze through an impossibly small opening to get to one of the rooms, but the assumption was that you'd do this all the time. There's one I remember in particular because I think I woke up wondering about it, where I was in a new house, and I went up a white staircase that got smaller and narrower as you went up it (Alice in Wonderland-like), and then there was a tiny sort of round opening at the top of the stairs to the right, off the floor a ways, and that was what you'd have to squeeze through to get to the bedrooms. This dream is probably all about wombs and birth and sex and inaccessibility.
Another theme that used to occur over and over was having to go up a step that was way too high, or a ledge that was way too steep, sometimes as the last stair in a staircase, it would be higher than my body was tall. I think I used to climb up okay, but then wondered how I was going to get down, and would be worried about the dramatic and very far drop and whether I would hurt myself. In all these dreams there'd be another person going ahead of me, not checking back to see if I was getting along okay, not offering any help, sort of with a "What?" sort of attitude. These dreams I think are about being safe.
I don't have any of these sorts of dreams any more. No dreams where architecture is either prohibiting access or making me unsafe. So, whatever else one can say about my current hermit life, I seem to have have gained a sense of security.
This thought reminded me of a recurring theme that I used to have in lots of dreams - that I was living in a house where you had to climb ladders or edge along precarious ledges to get to the top floor. Or where you had to squeeze through an impossibly small opening to get to one of the rooms, but the assumption was that you'd do this all the time. There's one I remember in particular because I think I woke up wondering about it, where I was in a new house, and I went up a white staircase that got smaller and narrower as you went up it (Alice in Wonderland-like), and then there was a tiny sort of round opening at the top of the stairs to the right, off the floor a ways, and that was what you'd have to squeeze through to get to the bedrooms. This dream is probably all about wombs and birth and sex and inaccessibility.
Another theme that used to occur over and over was having to go up a step that was way too high, or a ledge that was way too steep, sometimes as the last stair in a staircase, it would be higher than my body was tall. I think I used to climb up okay, but then wondered how I was going to get down, and would be worried about the dramatic and very far drop and whether I would hurt myself. In all these dreams there'd be another person going ahead of me, not checking back to see if I was getting along okay, not offering any help, sort of with a "What?" sort of attitude. These dreams I think are about being safe.
I don't have any of these sorts of dreams any more. No dreams where architecture is either prohibiting access or making me unsafe. So, whatever else one can say about my current hermit life, I seem to have have gained a sense of security.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Dilettante
I was talking to my Mom on the phone tonight. I've been feeling generally blocked about a number of projects, and as she was asking about some past but currently faded enthusiasms, I started talking about that process of starting out with grand plans, but then losing interest, getting distracted, eventually hitting a wall and dropping the pursuit altogether for some shinier alternative.
It was like this with knitting. Last year I started on a plainish scarf (huge needles, huge yarn, a simple 3x3 rib pattern) and found that the basics came easily to me. (I even caused Mom to cry out, "I'm so proud of you!", from that scarf - how often does that happen in life?) I signed up for a class, went to a weekend conference, got all excited, envisioned myself learning to do that complicated Norwegian knitting with lots of colors, imagined going around the country to all the events, getting to be a nationally recognized expert. "But first you have to finish your second sock," said Mom tonight. Right. My first sock doesn't have a toe in it, so actually that's first, then the second sock, then world domination.
The latest enthusiasm is the guitar, and it's going well too - because of my background of childhood music lessons and previous experience at stringed instrument playing, I am picking it up really quickly and my teacher has been expressing amazement. I will do anything for praise, so I'm trying to keep up with the practice, but I'm worried that this passion will wane as well, and become this year's knitting. If I stop now, in ten years I might be able to pick out "Louie Louie", but I certainly won't have quit my day job to become a touring session musician.
Looking back over my life, the list is long. Japanese lessons, aikido, pottery class, opera fandom. I start out well, I have a knack for it, I pick it up quickly. I envision reaching the highest heights and having it be a major part of my life. In a few months it fades, I put the books away or the gi in the bottom drawer, it's on to the next thing.
Back to guitar - I talked to Mom about my outsized ambitions and she said, "To do that you have to practice a lot." That's right. It's simple, isn't it. The enthusiasm vs the wall, and the fading interest and the dropping and moving on, happens at the point that is as far as talent can take you. You can get that far on talent, and then after that is hard work.
(I'm sure I have a copy of a quote somewhere that says just this, it must be in that Andrew Johns DVD....)
It was like this with knitting. Last year I started on a plainish scarf (huge needles, huge yarn, a simple 3x3 rib pattern) and found that the basics came easily to me. (I even caused Mom to cry out, "I'm so proud of you!", from that scarf - how often does that happen in life?) I signed up for a class, went to a weekend conference, got all excited, envisioned myself learning to do that complicated Norwegian knitting with lots of colors, imagined going around the country to all the events, getting to be a nationally recognized expert. "But first you have to finish your second sock," said Mom tonight. Right. My first sock doesn't have a toe in it, so actually that's first, then the second sock, then world domination.
The latest enthusiasm is the guitar, and it's going well too - because of my background of childhood music lessons and previous experience at stringed instrument playing, I am picking it up really quickly and my teacher has been expressing amazement. I will do anything for praise, so I'm trying to keep up with the practice, but I'm worried that this passion will wane as well, and become this year's knitting. If I stop now, in ten years I might be able to pick out "Louie Louie", but I certainly won't have quit my day job to become a touring session musician.
Looking back over my life, the list is long. Japanese lessons, aikido, pottery class, opera fandom. I start out well, I have a knack for it, I pick it up quickly. I envision reaching the highest heights and having it be a major part of my life. In a few months it fades, I put the books away or the gi in the bottom drawer, it's on to the next thing.
Back to guitar - I talked to Mom about my outsized ambitions and she said, "To do that you have to practice a lot." That's right. It's simple, isn't it. The enthusiasm vs the wall, and the fading interest and the dropping and moving on, happens at the point that is as far as talent can take you. You can get that far on talent, and then after that is hard work.
(I'm sure I have a copy of a quote somewhere that says just this, it must be in that Andrew Johns DVD....)
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Cocoon
A warning in advance - this is probably going to be a whingey one, because I'm at home and feeling sorry for myself.
A plan I had when I moved here was to start up a version of the philosophy group I attended in Sydney. I deeply believe in the group's values and format, and it gave my life a sense of meaning when I was attending regularly.
I didn't pursue the project right away when I first moved here because I had underestimated the effort involved in just setting up household and doing my job, but a few months ago I did start to think about it again. I lined up a potential venue, a coffee house associated with a charitable organization that serves as a venue for all sorts of diverse alternative groups. I tracked down the program head, he was interested, it sounded like my proposed group's objectives were aligned enough with the coffee house's mission that they would sponsor it, I could use the place for free, they would put me in their monthly calendars, it all looked very positive. But first, he said I should attend one of their existing discussion groups, to see if there would be "synergies".
And that's where it stopped. Their group meets every Friday at noon - but I work a proper job so I wouldn't be able to attend one of those, much less a few of them to see if the format and populace were the sort I wanted to associate myself with. The evening one meets every fourth Wednesday night. So, yep, tonight, in ten minutes, in fact. This is the third one I've had on my calendar, I even knocked back another arrangement tonight to make it possible that I could go, but I can't go.
At 5pm I end up too shattered from work to do anything hard like go somewhere in a room full of strangers, much less be obliged to discuss and converse with them, and present myself to their leader as a together, gung-ho, trustworthy sort who, if given the venue to host her own thing, would do a good job and bring their whole organization additional repute. No way I could be that girl after a day of work. So I have crawled back to my cozy and safe home to just sit very still and gather enough energy that I maybe can go back and do it all again tomorrow.
Why is my work so shattering? Am I just really old now and can't work hard any more? It is kind of a hard job, lots of tasks, endless to do list that I never finish. And hard to prioritize because I'm so far flung out there on my own. I haven't had a boss since July 1, so no one really cares what I do or how well I do it, but I live under the constant threat that one day someone will finally ask me, and I'll fall short.
And the people - I like the people but I think the politics take a lot of energy to manage. I don't have a bestest friend at work with whom I can just be absolutely myself. Every word has to get weighed up and calculated and run through various scenarios before being uttered, even the facial expression and tone have to be controlled to convey the right impression - not too clueless and scared, not to ambitious and confident, not too goody-goody and positive, but not too cynical and dejected either. To make things happen I have to exert personal influence and conversational clarity, mainly via email, to about 100 different people. And I get more or less no direction, feedback, or window into what this will all be like in 3 months because we're undergoing a restructure so I know I won't have this job any more but don't know what my new job will be.
So, I just don't have enough sawdust sewn inside me to go to a meeting with strangers and discuss with them, and sell myself as the potential leader of a group of my own that would have synergies with it. Much less actually start a group, promote it, ruck up on time, lead it, make newcomers feel welcome even if they're crazy, and all the charismatic things that the leader of the Sydney group used to do week in week out. I need to curl up, eat rice cakes and watch bad cable TV. For days! I don't have the gumption to do anything but work, since work takes so much.
So, then, the big question is, how the fuck am I ever going to make any friends? Much less ever get a new boyfriend, much less partner up with someone, so that when life does this to me I can come back into my cozy house and there will be someone else in it, someone who has my back and is my friend and thinks I'm great just as I am and I don't have to control my reactions (well, as much as you always do in a marriage, but not as much as at work) and can be safe and supported and get restored. I want another caterpillar here in this cocoon. How the fuck am I ever going to have enough energy to get out there and find one, to haul back in here and be with me when I retreat back in?
A plan I had when I moved here was to start up a version of the philosophy group I attended in Sydney. I deeply believe in the group's values and format, and it gave my life a sense of meaning when I was attending regularly.
I didn't pursue the project right away when I first moved here because I had underestimated the effort involved in just setting up household and doing my job, but a few months ago I did start to think about it again. I lined up a potential venue, a coffee house associated with a charitable organization that serves as a venue for all sorts of diverse alternative groups. I tracked down the program head, he was interested, it sounded like my proposed group's objectives were aligned enough with the coffee house's mission that they would sponsor it, I could use the place for free, they would put me in their monthly calendars, it all looked very positive. But first, he said I should attend one of their existing discussion groups, to see if there would be "synergies".
And that's where it stopped. Their group meets every Friday at noon - but I work a proper job so I wouldn't be able to attend one of those, much less a few of them to see if the format and populace were the sort I wanted to associate myself with. The evening one meets every fourth Wednesday night. So, yep, tonight, in ten minutes, in fact. This is the third one I've had on my calendar, I even knocked back another arrangement tonight to make it possible that I could go, but I can't go.
At 5pm I end up too shattered from work to do anything hard like go somewhere in a room full of strangers, much less be obliged to discuss and converse with them, and present myself to their leader as a together, gung-ho, trustworthy sort who, if given the venue to host her own thing, would do a good job and bring their whole organization additional repute. No way I could be that girl after a day of work. So I have crawled back to my cozy and safe home to just sit very still and gather enough energy that I maybe can go back and do it all again tomorrow.
Why is my work so shattering? Am I just really old now and can't work hard any more? It is kind of a hard job, lots of tasks, endless to do list that I never finish. And hard to prioritize because I'm so far flung out there on my own. I haven't had a boss since July 1, so no one really cares what I do or how well I do it, but I live under the constant threat that one day someone will finally ask me, and I'll fall short.
And the people - I like the people but I think the politics take a lot of energy to manage. I don't have a bestest friend at work with whom I can just be absolutely myself. Every word has to get weighed up and calculated and run through various scenarios before being uttered, even the facial expression and tone have to be controlled to convey the right impression - not too clueless and scared, not to ambitious and confident, not too goody-goody and positive, but not too cynical and dejected either. To make things happen I have to exert personal influence and conversational clarity, mainly via email, to about 100 different people. And I get more or less no direction, feedback, or window into what this will all be like in 3 months because we're undergoing a restructure so I know I won't have this job any more but don't know what my new job will be.
So, I just don't have enough sawdust sewn inside me to go to a meeting with strangers and discuss with them, and sell myself as the potential leader of a group of my own that would have synergies with it. Much less actually start a group, promote it, ruck up on time, lead it, make newcomers feel welcome even if they're crazy, and all the charismatic things that the leader of the Sydney group used to do week in week out. I need to curl up, eat rice cakes and watch bad cable TV. For days! I don't have the gumption to do anything but work, since work takes so much.
So, then, the big question is, how the fuck am I ever going to make any friends? Much less ever get a new boyfriend, much less partner up with someone, so that when life does this to me I can come back into my cozy house and there will be someone else in it, someone who has my back and is my friend and thinks I'm great just as I am and I don't have to control my reactions (well, as much as you always do in a marriage, but not as much as at work) and can be safe and supported and get restored. I want another caterpillar here in this cocoon. How the fuck am I ever going to have enough energy to get out there and find one, to haul back in here and be with me when I retreat back in?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Cold as ice
Today was a weather milestone - we're getting into the season of weather milestones - because it was the first night when it went below freezing. It was still just on freezing when I woke up this morning, and so it became also a wardrobe milestone, the first day I wore the winter coat work work instead of the fall coat. The winter coat was my winter coat in Australia so it's just barely adequate at this temperature, but I'm going to hold out to wear the big knee-length down one with fur on the hood until it hits 20F degrees, the temperature for which it was rated in the Eddie Bauer catalog.
Today when I left work and walked outside I felt that feeling on my skin that I remember from last year, but with a completely different attitude toward it. The feeling of the air when it's in the low 40's, when you've lived in Australia for 15 years and San Diego for 4 before that, is an alarming feeling. There's kind of a metallic sting to it, and the feeling of it causes alarm. "Hurt!" your skin says to you. "Cold! Hurt! Warning! Wrong! Something wrong! Hey!" The recent arrival from Australia attends to these alarms from the surface of the skin and feels panic and concern and a kind of surreal feeling that you never thought you could be this cold and here you are out it in. But the long-term Wisconsinite just doesn't attend to the sensation at all. It was still there, I checked, but all my attention was on the toasty warm center of my body, where my core temperature was consistent and just fine. I knew nothing bad would happen, on that walk to my car, and that I wouldn't get so cold that I couldn't warm back up again in like one minute with the car heat on me, so I didn't attend to it as a sensation at all.
And that's freaky, seriously, don't you think? But I'm proud of it! I've paid my dues, through the longest, coldest and snowiest winter in the past 100 years, and now that another winter is nearly upon us, I'm ready, I know what's in store, and I'm not worried, inside I'm toasty warm.
Today when I left work and walked outside I felt that feeling on my skin that I remember from last year, but with a completely different attitude toward it. The feeling of the air when it's in the low 40's, when you've lived in Australia for 15 years and San Diego for 4 before that, is an alarming feeling. There's kind of a metallic sting to it, and the feeling of it causes alarm. "Hurt!" your skin says to you. "Cold! Hurt! Warning! Wrong! Something wrong! Hey!" The recent arrival from Australia attends to these alarms from the surface of the skin and feels panic and concern and a kind of surreal feeling that you never thought you could be this cold and here you are out it in. But the long-term Wisconsinite just doesn't attend to the sensation at all. It was still there, I checked, but all my attention was on the toasty warm center of my body, where my core temperature was consistent and just fine. I knew nothing bad would happen, on that walk to my car, and that I wouldn't get so cold that I couldn't warm back up again in like one minute with the car heat on me, so I didn't attend to it as a sensation at all.
And that's freaky, seriously, don't you think? But I'm proud of it! I've paid my dues, through the longest, coldest and snowiest winter in the past 100 years, and now that another winter is nearly upon us, I'm ready, I know what's in store, and I'm not worried, inside I'm toasty warm.
Monday, October 20, 2008
All het up and can't sleep
For two weeks now, my horoscope in Astrobarry has been telling me that I'm too good at hiding my feelings and desires, too good at playing it cool, and that the risk is that the object of my affections won't know how I feel, and that will eliminate even the possibility of anything more happening. For two weeks now, he's been telling me to be a bit more direct, although not pushy, and even if I have been knocked back before, to re-propose to the object of my affections the benefit to them that might accrue if we were to get a little closer, because he mind have changed his mind.
And then last week when out at lunch with one of the candidates, I got a fortune cookie that said, "Someone is interested in you. Keep your eyes open."
So, the stars and the cookies are all full of promise of possibility, interested parties lurking out there unaware and undecided. Parties that might not actually flatly turn me down if I were to play things a little less cool and let them know that maybe, you know, if they were interested, it might be the case that I might also be interested.
This possibility is throwing me all in a tizz. First, I don't really have an object of affection. I have crushes, sure, everyone has crushes. Half of them are Hollywood movie stars so I probably won't get to avow my love to them during this particular phase of the moon that's supposed to increase my odds of a positive response. Lots of them are married so the crush never even gets off the ground, because I don't do married guys and I don't do polyamory. Married guys don't even get into the consideration set. And the rest of them all are really, inappropriately, beyond-cougar-like too young. Really.* Although they're the ones that come to mind when Astrobarry says I should start declaring love and demonstrating affections and desires.
I can't. The youngsters are all just manifestations of some phase I'm going through, right? These crushes are, more than usual, just manufactured inside my head. Right? There's no possibility that Astrobarry's advice is good advice, because what would happen is I would just humiliate myself. Right? Because even though I feel young at heart and like I maybe could still pass for in my 30's somewhere, which even that is too old, I'm probably fooling myself and come across perfectly clearly as a 45-year old, wrinkly, damaged, older woman. Who was alive when Kennedy was assassinated and remembers the moon landing. Actually risking some more overt gesture of something would just be setting myself up for humiliation. Right? I have to wait until I find someone single and interesting and age-appropriate, so that doesn't happen. So the horoscopes mean nothing. Nothing needs to be done. No possibilities are actually out there in the offing right now. The risk is still too great and the crushes are still too imaginary.
Or is this challenge designed to make me feel this very discomfort? The "maybe" feeling. I've been just assuming, since the big Broken Heart, that I'm too old for anyone to actually be attracted to, that I'm out of the game. You know, or that the damaged wrecks left out there are too desperate and broken themselves to be crush-worthy, much less worth going after or building something with. Crushes are not predation - getting something together with someone desperate whom you don't like does not count in this particular moon phase. Astrobarry is talking about something else, and maybe even if I don't make some sort of ultra-risky and embarrassing move on one of those poor creatures just going about minding his own business, maybe the lesson of this is to get this "maybe" feeling back in my life. So that when an appropriate and actually viable crush comes along, I might be able to move then. I might not play it so cool that the ships just pass in the night and never know the possibility of what might have been.
Right? It's a lesson for the future?
*Creepiness ratio, for reference: (your age/2)+7
And then last week when out at lunch with one of the candidates, I got a fortune cookie that said, "Someone is interested in you. Keep your eyes open."
So, the stars and the cookies are all full of promise of possibility, interested parties lurking out there unaware and undecided. Parties that might not actually flatly turn me down if I were to play things a little less cool and let them know that maybe, you know, if they were interested, it might be the case that I might also be interested.
This possibility is throwing me all in a tizz. First, I don't really have an object of affection. I have crushes, sure, everyone has crushes. Half of them are Hollywood movie stars so I probably won't get to avow my love to them during this particular phase of the moon that's supposed to increase my odds of a positive response. Lots of them are married so the crush never even gets off the ground, because I don't do married guys and I don't do polyamory. Married guys don't even get into the consideration set. And the rest of them all are really, inappropriately, beyond-cougar-like too young. Really.* Although they're the ones that come to mind when Astrobarry says I should start declaring love and demonstrating affections and desires.
I can't. The youngsters are all just manifestations of some phase I'm going through, right? These crushes are, more than usual, just manufactured inside my head. Right? There's no possibility that Astrobarry's advice is good advice, because what would happen is I would just humiliate myself. Right? Because even though I feel young at heart and like I maybe could still pass for in my 30's somewhere, which even that is too old, I'm probably fooling myself and come across perfectly clearly as a 45-year old, wrinkly, damaged, older woman. Who was alive when Kennedy was assassinated and remembers the moon landing. Actually risking some more overt gesture of something would just be setting myself up for humiliation. Right? I have to wait until I find someone single and interesting and age-appropriate, so that doesn't happen. So the horoscopes mean nothing. Nothing needs to be done. No possibilities are actually out there in the offing right now. The risk is still too great and the crushes are still too imaginary.
Or is this challenge designed to make me feel this very discomfort? The "maybe" feeling. I've been just assuming, since the big Broken Heart, that I'm too old for anyone to actually be attracted to, that I'm out of the game. You know, or that the damaged wrecks left out there are too desperate and broken themselves to be crush-worthy, much less worth going after or building something with. Crushes are not predation - getting something together with someone desperate whom you don't like does not count in this particular moon phase. Astrobarry is talking about something else, and maybe even if I don't make some sort of ultra-risky and embarrassing move on one of those poor creatures just going about minding his own business, maybe the lesson of this is to get this "maybe" feeling back in my life. So that when an appropriate and actually viable crush comes along, I might be able to move then. I might not play it so cool that the ships just pass in the night and never know the possibility of what might have been.
Right? It's a lesson for the future?
*Creepiness ratio, for reference: (your age/2)+7
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Today's accomplishments
To stave off the creeping Sunday block, here is the list of positivity from today.
- Did manage to get up early
- Made it to the second-last markets, walked up and down and looked at the produce, bought an area rug for the kitchen
- Had coffee and read a NY'er at my favorite coffee shop, when it was so crowded there was only one table left for me to choose from when I sat down
- Listened to a bit of fabulous Saturday NPR radio
- When I felt my body going south, actually went and got some allergy drugs so I won't end up with an infection (saw someone from work at the drug store, it's happening more often all the time these days), and then didn't push myself to do stuff at home but went back to bed
- Stretched and exercised the different parts of my body that haven't had specific attention due to the steamroller approach of my latest trainer (he resigned on Friday so I think I get to reassess - what I really want is to lift weights, in a precise way with perfect form, and then look after the brute force cardio and metabolic foolishness on my own. Or maybe, with that emphasis on form and strength, maybe what I really want to be is a ballet dancer?)
- Turned off the TV and spent a half hour with my guitar, working on strumming patterns (keep the count in your arm so your brain doesn't have to worry about it) and thinking about 7th chords (worked out which ones they all resolve to). Need to work on ringing tones while not squeezing the left hand. Need before that to cut my nails.
- Made some notes about things to blog about and then blogged about them (see below).
- Gave up on the conversations of my conservative friends online when they just went off about Michelle Obama ordering lobster from room service. They are all childish hypocrites who just like making fun of things for its own sake, and I don't have time to get embroiled in that level of conversation. Oh, reminds me -
- Bought an Obama button and wore it while walking around the markets, and also picked up some info about the people running for State Assembly but still don't know what district I live in.
- Dined on chicken noodle soup (last dinner-like thing in the cupboard, but should also help my respiratory challenges) and a grilled cheese sandwich made out of the fancy 6 year old cheddar left over from fancy wine on Thursday night.
- And then made a list of positivity so I am not afflicted by block and despair tomorrow when I wake up and can't choose which things to focus on.
From infancy to toddlerhood - any day now
Next Sunday is my one-year anniversary of being in Appleton (I have a party scheduled).
Today I was at a cafe at lunchtime and saw a lady with a little blond boy by her side and an even littler blonde girl on her lap. She was feeding them and trying to eat her own lunch as well, all on her own, and they were all so entangled and on top of each other physically that it was like one multi-headed, multi-grasping-fingered blond animal.
I thought about having two kids who were so little, thought about just the logistics of making sure neither one wandered off and ran into danger and both were always fed and more or less clean. And thought again, as I have thought before, of the commitment - after a whole year of raising a little human baby, all you get to show for it is a one-year old.
Reflecting on the fact that I've lived here almost one year, it occurred to me to think about the developmental maturity of my duration in Appleton. It's eating solid food now, has a few cute little teeth in the front, can say about 60 words, but probably has yet to take its first steps.
First steps coming up - stay tuned as I update the Baby Book, here.
Today I was at a cafe at lunchtime and saw a lady with a little blond boy by her side and an even littler blonde girl on her lap. She was feeding them and trying to eat her own lunch as well, all on her own, and they were all so entangled and on top of each other physically that it was like one multi-headed, multi-grasping-fingered blond animal.
I thought about having two kids who were so little, thought about just the logistics of making sure neither one wandered off and ran into danger and both were always fed and more or less clean. And thought again, as I have thought before, of the commitment - after a whole year of raising a little human baby, all you get to show for it is a one-year old.
Reflecting on the fact that I've lived here almost one year, it occurred to me to think about the developmental maturity of my duration in Appleton. It's eating solid food now, has a few cute little teeth in the front, can say about 60 words, but probably has yet to take its first steps.
First steps coming up - stay tuned as I update the Baby Book, here.
cold cream
I left my gym bag in the car overnight by mistake. This morning after taking a shower I went out and got it because it has my only bottle of face moisturizer. It was really cold, and putting in on made me feel like one of those very elegant ladies from the 1950's who kept her cold cream in the fridge.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
A bit of bliss
Sitting in fancy cane chairs with comfortable seats, which are in a circle around an open fire pit on a garden patio under an Autumn midwest sky. In the chair beside me is the only other Australian I know in town. On the elegant small table between us is some aged cheddar, olive tapenade and crisp flatbread, plus two flights of red wine, hers a collection of California cabernets, mine a collection of various Southern Hemisphere drops.
You wouldn't pick it, since the location of the place is most accurately described as "basically in the Best Buy parking lot", but here was a little bit of bliss.
You wouldn't pick it, since the location of the place is most accurately described as "basically in the Best Buy parking lot", but here was a little bit of bliss.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Up late doing homework
Hi.
I'm actually writing this on my work computer, which I've got hooked up to the modem at home. I have a presentation to give tomorrow at 2pm that's kind of in my head but I haven't even started the PowerPoint yet, and I'm planning some other audiovisual support as well, and I don't really know how long this is going to take to put together.
And then, after that, I have to deliver the first draft of another presentation reviewing highlights of Q3 2008, and that's not even in my head yet, much less in PowerPoint. I've already put it off for two, maybe three meetings - just flat out cancelled one this morning when I was supposed to have it all done. I was going to get up at 5 and do it early this morning, but turned off the alarm and had a disturbing dream about a cat and a dog fighting and trying to get dressed to go to a family dinner, and I woke up at 7:15 and was 15 minutes late to every blessed thing all day long, so there went that plan.
So tonight is the night.
I cancelled my meeting with my trainer tomorrow morning at 6, not because I think I'll still be up then working, but because with him, I end up so thrashed that I go all wobbly for more or less the rest of the day, eyes kind of roll and won't stay open, and I'm sure I seem a bit vague. So I thought, what with the late night I'm looking at, I probably need all my spare energy to be able to present the presentation coherently.
My mom can tell you that for every paper I had to write in high school, I first had to whip myself into a frenzy and then sit on the floor at the end of the couch and cry for a while, and then I could go upstairs and actually get on and do it. Here I am again. Not crying, but certainly finding the prospect of actually turning off the TV (post-debate analysis) and sitting in the corner in my spare room (I've turned on Pandora, the Shins station, to try to make it less lonely and bleak), and setting myself a standard to meet and struggling with the words and communication and getting it all done, and then doing the other one - I would rather do anything else than actually buckle down and do these things.
So, thanks for chatting with me and letting me feel like I've got a friend here with me. It's like studying with your bestest friend in the next study cubicle. When you're ready for a caffeine break, let me know! Just throw a note over the wall and I'll meet you on the stairs.
I'm actually writing this on my work computer, which I've got hooked up to the modem at home. I have a presentation to give tomorrow at 2pm that's kind of in my head but I haven't even started the PowerPoint yet, and I'm planning some other audiovisual support as well, and I don't really know how long this is going to take to put together.
And then, after that, I have to deliver the first draft of another presentation reviewing highlights of Q3 2008, and that's not even in my head yet, much less in PowerPoint. I've already put it off for two, maybe three meetings - just flat out cancelled one this morning when I was supposed to have it all done. I was going to get up at 5 and do it early this morning, but turned off the alarm and had a disturbing dream about a cat and a dog fighting and trying to get dressed to go to a family dinner, and I woke up at 7:15 and was 15 minutes late to every blessed thing all day long, so there went that plan.
So tonight is the night.
I cancelled my meeting with my trainer tomorrow morning at 6, not because I think I'll still be up then working, but because with him, I end up so thrashed that I go all wobbly for more or less the rest of the day, eyes kind of roll and won't stay open, and I'm sure I seem a bit vague. So I thought, what with the late night I'm looking at, I probably need all my spare energy to be able to present the presentation coherently.
My mom can tell you that for every paper I had to write in high school, I first had to whip myself into a frenzy and then sit on the floor at the end of the couch and cry for a while, and then I could go upstairs and actually get on and do it. Here I am again. Not crying, but certainly finding the prospect of actually turning off the TV (post-debate analysis) and sitting in the corner in my spare room (I've turned on Pandora, the Shins station, to try to make it less lonely and bleak), and setting myself a standard to meet and struggling with the words and communication and getting it all done, and then doing the other one - I would rather do anything else than actually buckle down and do these things.
So, thanks for chatting with me and letting me feel like I've got a friend here with me. It's like studying with your bestest friend in the next study cubicle. When you're ready for a caffeine break, let me know! Just throw a note over the wall and I'll meet you on the stairs.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Red leaves and looking
The fall is just amazing, but it changes quickly. Only a couple days ago there were still a fair few trees with green leaves still. The ones that had gone early, mostly yellow ones with small leaves, were starting to drop them and expose bare branches, but you got the feeling the full crescendo was still in the future.
Last night was maybe the apex and I didn't even realize it at the time. At lunch I noticed a yellow tree out the windows that was just glowing, and it had dropped enough leaves on the ground that there was a glowing reflection beneath it. Like in Spring in Brisbane when the jacarandas bloom and create a purple mirror on the ground beneath them, but canary yellow instead. The red ones have started turning now, and the bunches of sumac on the side of the highway, and some others that are these unnatural deep burgundy color. Driving home last night with a sky full of flat midwestern clouds, just at sunset, the sky was all pink and the trees were all purple - it was almost too much, really.
Last night a front came through with a strong wind, and today many, many trees stood bare with grey branches. I remember the grey branches from February, and March, and April, when I was waiting to see the first bud that would prove to me that this winter wouldn't last forever. Seeing so many of them so suddenly was a carpe diem moment this morning. I should have taken photos a few days ago. I should have gone outside during lunch and just stood under the boughs and turned circles and seen them.
There's still a lot of glory left, especially if you focus on the currently beautiful ones as isolated entities, but you know, it's fleeting. Changes every day. If you blink, or stay in with the blinds closed, you miss it.
Although, then, the reassuring part of changing seasons and the earth continuing to turn is, you know, next year it will all happen again, exactly the same.
Last night was maybe the apex and I didn't even realize it at the time. At lunch I noticed a yellow tree out the windows that was just glowing, and it had dropped enough leaves on the ground that there was a glowing reflection beneath it. Like in Spring in Brisbane when the jacarandas bloom and create a purple mirror on the ground beneath them, but canary yellow instead. The red ones have started turning now, and the bunches of sumac on the side of the highway, and some others that are these unnatural deep burgundy color. Driving home last night with a sky full of flat midwestern clouds, just at sunset, the sky was all pink and the trees were all purple - it was almost too much, really.
Last night a front came through with a strong wind, and today many, many trees stood bare with grey branches. I remember the grey branches from February, and March, and April, when I was waiting to see the first bud that would prove to me that this winter wouldn't last forever. Seeing so many of them so suddenly was a carpe diem moment this morning. I should have taken photos a few days ago. I should have gone outside during lunch and just stood under the boughs and turned circles and seen them.
There's still a lot of glory left, especially if you focus on the currently beautiful ones as isolated entities, but you know, it's fleeting. Changes every day. If you blink, or stay in with the blinds closed, you miss it.
Although, then, the reassuring part of changing seasons and the earth continuing to turn is, you know, next year it will all happen again, exactly the same.
Punk song
I'm thinking of writing a punk song in tribute to my afternoon snack today:
"Diet Coke and Pseudoephedrine"
"Diet Coke and Pseudoephedrine"
Monday, October 13, 2008
Monday
Here's the list from today:
- Kept my dr's appointment although it was for a different reason than I originally booked it for. Got some gnarly decongestants, so now my ears are unblocked and I'm not dizzy any more, but I've lost my voice. Fall allergies are definitely something I did not miss from my midwestern childhood and I am looking forward to the first snow. So hard to be cool and professional and graceful and sexy when all your interior tissues are inflamed.
- Made some inquiries, found out the room was free, so tomorrow the official invitation can go out for my Anniversary Party. Combining it with a "last box" party turned out to be too ambitious (duh, Ellen), so I'm hiring the nice room in the clubhouse of my apartment complex. It'll be nice anyway - it's got couches, patio, easy stroll out to the little lake, a small kitchen. Also lined up at least three people who said they could come. This will be my first party since moving here, and long overdue, definitely. I hope my voice comes back before then. But with enough wine, even a hoarse woman can be a good hostess, right?
- Had no meetings at all today. First time that's happened since my first week there, I believe. Got enormous amounts done - worked my way through the action items from every meeting last week, briefed the important emails that have been waiting since about March, briefed the coupon project that isn't even out of my budget but needs me to coordinate. Oh, yes, I had one brief meeting and will have to coordinate a whole bunch of things for that as well, but I feel like The Bringer Of Order From Chaos today, nothing I like more than identifying a business need and turning into a series of unconfusable instructions for IT people - "Put this image exactly here, take this word out and put this one in its place, then on the next page..."
- Went to the grocery store without pain, bought what I needed and spend $8.10. A new record low. Needless to say, no coupons spat out with my receipt. But now I have stuff for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow.
- Listened with love. A colleague and I are trading CDs back and forth, and he gave me last week a compilation of his favorite songs from 2006-2007, and none of it is squarely in my preferred genres, but by asking lots of follow-up questions he's getting me to listen to it more carefully and form preferences. And his favorite song, the last one on the album, he had said it was his favorite, and that if I didn't like it we couldn't be friends any more (he uses that locution a lot). I liked it fine, the first listen through, an acoustic number recorded in a small room very close up to the microphone. He asked the follow-up question today because I hadn't mentioned an opinion, "And did you listen to Blah? It pretty much sums up my existence since early 2007." Oh. I need to listen to the words. So I did, on the way to the grocery store. It's all about being lonely and misunderstood. Oh. So, I'm listening to that song, with love (with my clear ears), and wondering if there are some emotions in this boy that weren't evident until now?
- Have some things to think about vis a vis free speech. Having become acquainted with lots of right-wing folks on Facebook, through one particular friend, I get to listen to their sweeping overgeneralizations about what all liberals are like, and you recognize that the folks on the left that they quote correspond to crazy folks on the right that lefties quote all the time. You realize you really have to articulate your points carefully, and check all your facts. It's good discipline. But do I still support the right of the extremists to say their extreme and inflammatory things? When an election is in the balance? My usual stance on speech is that it's not just information, speech is action, and it can hurt people. I am against speech that can cause people harm. But which speech is that? That's what the argument is about. I have some thinking to do.
- make nutritious dinner
- practice guitar (found out Chris Issak songs sound really great with the amp set on "The Fifties" setting)
- listen with further love to the Facebook debates
- gird my bravery for seeing my torturous trainer again tomorrow, but I can tell him about my ears and we'll work something out
- made nutritious dinner, as well as doing the dishes afterward
- practiced guitar - I'm finding that the solo from Van Halen's Eruption is easier than the strumming pattern on House of the Rising Sun.
- got a nice message back from one of the Facebook combatants, who it turns out was an Independent all along
- packed for gym tomorrow morning
- listened with love to various Shins and Chris Isaak songs - I worked out the song that best describes my past year is "Young Pilgrims" by The Shins
- talked to Dad on the phone - Mom was at an outing!
- but stayed up too late internetting, and waiting for that mysterious message that I'm always waiting for. I'm sure it's actually a message from the alienated part of my self - "Hi, Ellen. Yep, I love you and understand you, and incorporating me together I make you whole." Well, thanks, alienated part of self. Have a good night yourself!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
but wait, there's more!
- Cleaned the bathroom, including the bathtub, and put up the new shower curtain
- Did today's dishes
- Took out the trash and the recycling
- Vacuumed
This might be even more boring than all the whinging, but you're going to have to bear with me - making a list and bringing yourself to do the little, day to day things is how to arrest a decline, how to overcome a block.
Accentuate the positive
Okay, it's not like I haven't noticed it too. Every weekend, whinge whinge whinge, about the boxes, about my bleak life, about my endless to-do list, about how hopeless I am. I'm just as bored as you are. I'm ready to try something different.
How about a list of all the things I did manage to accomplish in a day? There might actually be a bit more narrative to that, as well.
How about a list of all the things I did manage to accomplish in a day? There might actually be a bit more narrative to that, as well.
- Awake before noon
- Cleaned up living room and dusted
- Made spaghetti bolognaise, enough for four servings, which will be a good start to the week
- Practice guitar for a while, played with some of the settings on the amp ("The Fifties" was a cool one, makes me want to download the tabs for some Chris Isaak songs)
- Washed my black cardigan and laid it out
- Took a walk to Starbucks and back, stopped off at Walgreens but they won't let you buy pseudoephedrine without the pharmacist there - one stupid worldwide crystal meth cartel ruins things for everyone, I tell you
- Wrote a blog about thistles
- Looked at the dry corn stalks against the blue sky and listened to the sound they make, also that they are taller than a person and you can only see about five rows in which is why they're a bit scary and a good setting for suspense movies like North By Northwest
- Put the dishes away from yesterday
- Worked out I'm well enough to go on a walk - so probably well enough to go to work tomorrow
- Made mental plans for an Anniversary Party - actual plans to begin tomorrow
- Paid my car registration
- Thought good thoughts about my sister at the time when her plane would be leaving Denver (to LAX, then Auckland, then Christchurch, then McMurdo, then Pole)
Thistles
Went for a walk to the Starbucks nearest me, just to see how long it would take (15 min., door to door).
On the way back I walked over a patch of grass and saw some thistles. They have leaves the same shape as dandelions but covered with small prickles. How well I remember those from my childhood lawn - the feeling of a childlike tender foot coming down hard in that bed of pain, the tiny grey spines coming away in your foot.
In Australia they don't have thistles like this but they do have bindis. These are more like burrs - little round brown objects studded around with prickly spines that must have some kind of hook on them because they catch in clothes and beach towels and are very hard to get out. The plant is called bindii (pron. "BIN-dee-eye). The word has become known to the rest of the world not from the prickly plant but because Steve Irwin named his oldest child Bindi. She's now a rather talented presenter of wildlife programs, but might end up a rather messed up adult because of her childhood in the media and her father's untimely passing. She's not named after the plant, though, but after a crocodile. But that's a whole different story.
On the way back I walked over a patch of grass and saw some thistles. They have leaves the same shape as dandelions but covered with small prickles. How well I remember those from my childhood lawn - the feeling of a childlike tender foot coming down hard in that bed of pain, the tiny grey spines coming away in your foot.
In Australia they don't have thistles like this but they do have bindis. These are more like burrs - little round brown objects studded around with prickly spines that must have some kind of hook on them because they catch in clothes and beach towels and are very hard to get out. The plant is called bindii (pron. "BIN-dee-eye). The word has become known to the rest of the world not from the prickly plant but because Steve Irwin named his oldest child Bindi. She's now a rather talented presenter of wildlife programs, but might end up a rather messed up adult because of her childhood in the media and her father's untimely passing. She's not named after the plant, though, but after a crocodile. But that's a whole different story.
Unwell
I was feeling drained and poorly after training with my new trainer, who emphasizes intensity and metabolic burn. One day I could barely stand in the shower after our session and was worried I might faint and they'd find me there, with a bump on my head.
I've been weepy. Last weekend I went to see a really slight and sort of dumb movie, "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist", and it was raining while I was driving home down College Ave, and tears just streamed uncontrollably out of my eyes, the same effect that the movies on the plane used to have when I used to take international flights for work.
I lost my temper at work. There's a difficult situation - restructure, plus new planning process, we all know we're getting new jobs but don't know what they'll be, the power structure is getting challenged and rearranged, there's paranoia and insecurity in all directions. But after saying "Yeah, yeah, whatever" to angsty colleagues all week, then an agency stepped on my own professional toes by presenting a web plan, and I just lost it. All over someone who is on my list of performance reviewers and could very well end up my new boss. Haven't had the chance to talk to her again to apologize and explain a bit more articulately what made me angry.
Friday I was late to work and while in a meeting noticed that when I turned my head to the side the room was spinning. I went down to the health service, she looked in my ears and exclaimed at how red they were inside. She said allergies. But my ears were blocked, and lymph nodes in neck working really hard.
I talked to my sister yesterday about the ear thing. She has this wonderful and hilarious book called "You Can Heal Your Life" that has a table of all the body parts that might be ailing and what that means, spiritually, plus some mantras to say to get better. The whole ear thing is so unusual, and has come on so suddenly, that I wondered what the book my say about it. Guess what it is? "Don't want to hear your parents arguing." That fits scarily well. All the senior managers at work are at war about 2009 plans. Plus, the election is hotting up and the candidates and all their advisors and the media, and then also all my Facebook friends, are yelling at each other and starting to get very emotional and scathing. Plus, my new trainer told me all his problems with the management at my gym and how he might leave. But it's all a secret so I'm not allowed to go to the manager to tell him. Everyone who's an authority figure in my Appleton life right now is fighting - emotions are high and it's getting a bit nasty. No wonder my ears hurt. My mantra is supposed to be "I listen to pleasant sounds with love." Okay, will do my best.
So, I've had another completely blank, disappointing and frustrating weekend. Haven't been out of the house, or even gotten dressed, since Friday evening. Trying to get house stuff done, the long list of ridiculous torment that never gets dented - weekend after weekend gets set aside and I just can't do any of it. Boxes, sure, but also recycling cardboard and plastic bags, taking old clothes to Goodwill, updating my iPod with new stuff, vacuuming (might help my allergies), cleaning the bathtub. Long list, tormenting me, but I keep lying down on the couch and watching renovation shows, or my parents argue with each other on CNN.
Had a plan to go on a lovely recreational drive to see the leaves, shop, have a nice lunch, take photos. Woke up too late to make it there by lunchtime. Feel too sick and dizzy to get ready and drive a long way. Plus, the house stuff. Plus the work stuff, didn't even mention that - the stuff that gets pushed off to do on the weekend, which I never do on the weekend.
My life is no fun. I don't have anyone to do anything with on weekends. I really need to put some effort into fixing that situation, but I'm ground down farther and farther by the stress of not having it - vicious downward spiral. And I'm unwell. If it's allergies, that really sucks, because that means this is more or less a permanent unwell feeling - until it snows, anyway. If it's the cold that's been going around at work, I wish it would just be the cold, so I could call in sick and be done with it.
I need about a week off work, maybe two weeks. Don't have enough vacation days. Wonder if I could get stress leave? Wonder what you have to do to get it. And then a whole week's worth of stuff would be undone when I got back, so I'd be that many more days behind.
This is a bad situation. All the books say you have to have hope to live, you have to have something to look forward to. You also need human contact and companionship, and you have to have some time off when you can just enjoy leisure activities, not on the clock, not doing a "to do" list or a pile of "shoulds". It's amazing I'm surviving at all. But how am I going to dig myself out of this hole?
What I do is just crawl in bed and take a long nap. And when the alarm goes off at 5 on Monday morning, get up and sleepwalk through it all again. One day a crisis will come, or else I will put things in place to gradually get better. But right now, this Sunday afternoon, this weekend, I am stuck.
I've been weepy. Last weekend I went to see a really slight and sort of dumb movie, "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist", and it was raining while I was driving home down College Ave, and tears just streamed uncontrollably out of my eyes, the same effect that the movies on the plane used to have when I used to take international flights for work.
I lost my temper at work. There's a difficult situation - restructure, plus new planning process, we all know we're getting new jobs but don't know what they'll be, the power structure is getting challenged and rearranged, there's paranoia and insecurity in all directions. But after saying "Yeah, yeah, whatever" to angsty colleagues all week, then an agency stepped on my own professional toes by presenting a web plan, and I just lost it. All over someone who is on my list of performance reviewers and could very well end up my new boss. Haven't had the chance to talk to her again to apologize and explain a bit more articulately what made me angry.
Friday I was late to work and while in a meeting noticed that when I turned my head to the side the room was spinning. I went down to the health service, she looked in my ears and exclaimed at how red they were inside. She said allergies. But my ears were blocked, and lymph nodes in neck working really hard.
I talked to my sister yesterday about the ear thing. She has this wonderful and hilarious book called "You Can Heal Your Life" that has a table of all the body parts that might be ailing and what that means, spiritually, plus some mantras to say to get better. The whole ear thing is so unusual, and has come on so suddenly, that I wondered what the book my say about it. Guess what it is? "Don't want to hear your parents arguing." That fits scarily well. All the senior managers at work are at war about 2009 plans. Plus, the election is hotting up and the candidates and all their advisors and the media, and then also all my Facebook friends, are yelling at each other and starting to get very emotional and scathing. Plus, my new trainer told me all his problems with the management at my gym and how he might leave. But it's all a secret so I'm not allowed to go to the manager to tell him. Everyone who's an authority figure in my Appleton life right now is fighting - emotions are high and it's getting a bit nasty. No wonder my ears hurt. My mantra is supposed to be "I listen to pleasant sounds with love." Okay, will do my best.
So, I've had another completely blank, disappointing and frustrating weekend. Haven't been out of the house, or even gotten dressed, since Friday evening. Trying to get house stuff done, the long list of ridiculous torment that never gets dented - weekend after weekend gets set aside and I just can't do any of it. Boxes, sure, but also recycling cardboard and plastic bags, taking old clothes to Goodwill, updating my iPod with new stuff, vacuuming (might help my allergies), cleaning the bathtub. Long list, tormenting me, but I keep lying down on the couch and watching renovation shows, or my parents argue with each other on CNN.
Had a plan to go on a lovely recreational drive to see the leaves, shop, have a nice lunch, take photos. Woke up too late to make it there by lunchtime. Feel too sick and dizzy to get ready and drive a long way. Plus, the house stuff. Plus the work stuff, didn't even mention that - the stuff that gets pushed off to do on the weekend, which I never do on the weekend.
My life is no fun. I don't have anyone to do anything with on weekends. I really need to put some effort into fixing that situation, but I'm ground down farther and farther by the stress of not having it - vicious downward spiral. And I'm unwell. If it's allergies, that really sucks, because that means this is more or less a permanent unwell feeling - until it snows, anyway. If it's the cold that's been going around at work, I wish it would just be the cold, so I could call in sick and be done with it.
I need about a week off work, maybe two weeks. Don't have enough vacation days. Wonder if I could get stress leave? Wonder what you have to do to get it. And then a whole week's worth of stuff would be undone when I got back, so I'd be that many more days behind.
This is a bad situation. All the books say you have to have hope to live, you have to have something to look forward to. You also need human contact and companionship, and you have to have some time off when you can just enjoy leisure activities, not on the clock, not doing a "to do" list or a pile of "shoulds". It's amazing I'm surviving at all. But how am I going to dig myself out of this hole?
What I do is just crawl in bed and take a long nap. And when the alarm goes off at 5 on Monday morning, get up and sleepwalk through it all again. One day a crisis will come, or else I will put things in place to gradually get better. But right now, this Sunday afternoon, this weekend, I am stuck.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
ladybug, ladybug (ladybug, ladybug, ladybug, ladybug)
Right now there are six ladybugs hanging on the screen outside my window.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Stationery happiness
I love the sight of stacks of new calendars and day-planners at the bookstore. We're coming up on a new year, and the sight of all those lovely, uncracked books full of black pages of possibility is a lovely sight.
I remember many times having the experience, first, of going through a new calendar and filling in the important dates - birthdays, Rugby League season kick-off and Grand Final, that kind of thing, and then later, having that long-anticpated date actually roll around and realizing it's finally here, right now.
When I lived in Sydney we sometimes subscribed to whole seasons of theatre, either at the Belvoir Street (especially when we lived on Belvoir Street, right across the road), or at the Sydney Theatre Company downtown. You'd get the tickets in like October or November, and there was always one for not the next January but two Januaries hence. Putting those dates in the calendar (usually on the back page where you could sketch out whole year plans) always really felt like an act of faith. And when those finally rolled around, and were this weekend, and then were today, that really did feel like a milestone.
When I lived in Sydney we sometimes subscribed to whole seasons of theatre, either at the Belvoir Street (especially when we lived on Belvoir Street, right across the road), or at the Sydney Theatre Company downtown. You'd get the tickets in like October or November, and there was always one for not the next January but two Januaries hence. Putting those dates in the calendar (usually on the back page where you could sketch out whole year plans) always really felt like an act of faith. And when those finally rolled around, and were this weekend, and then were today, that really did feel like a milestone.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Definitely reverse seasonal affective disorder
It's October, the leaves are turning, it's dark when I get up in the morning and dark when I get home at night. It's cold and damp and I noticed about a week ago that suddenly I can concentrate, I'm in an optimistic mood, I can get things done.
Tonight when I left work it was raining and misty, and although driving was kind of a pain, when I looked at the coloured leaves through the soft mist and the drops pattering on the windshield, my main thought was, "This is really romantic."
Conversely, on Saturday I was inside, on the computer, in the spare room with blinds drawn, and my cousin IM'd me and asked, "Why aren't you outside in the sun?" I had a look outside at the sun, but the very thought of going out there made me tired.
I definitely do better in the cold, dark and wet. I wonder how many others out there have my rare and misunderstood condition?
Tonight when I left work it was raining and misty, and although driving was kind of a pain, when I looked at the coloured leaves through the soft mist and the drops pattering on the windshield, my main thought was, "This is really romantic."
Conversely, on Saturday I was inside, on the computer, in the spare room with blinds drawn, and my cousin IM'd me and asked, "Why aren't you outside in the sun?" I had a look outside at the sun, but the very thought of going out there made me tired.
I definitely do better in the cold, dark and wet. I wonder how many others out there have my rare and misunderstood condition?
Monday, October 6, 2008
Why I haven't been doorknocking
This evening Terri Gross on Fresh Air (NPR radio show) was talking to the current Presiding Bishop of the Epsicopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori. I haven't transcribed the quote exactly, but when asked about the Pastors who recently spoke from the pulpit and told their parishioners how to vote and in doing so risked losing their church's tax-exempt status, she said something like,
"My job is not to tell my parishioners how to vote. My job is to help them explore their own values, so they are more clear about their own decisions."
"My job is not to tell my parishioners how to vote. My job is to help them explore their own values, so they are more clear about their own decisions."
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Sunday night reset
I had planned to spend the whole weekend working hard, per the predictions in my horoscope. Day 1, house stuff - deep cleaning, including the scary bathtub in my ensuite bathroom; and then Day 2, work stuff - actually do some of the time-consuming tasks that I have too many meetings on work days to get done, and process a few things that are waiting on me for approvals or routing.
I did hardly anything. I feel like I spent all the time, but more or less everything is still exactly where it was on Friday.
I did the dishes, which needed doing, and even did another lot of dishes, but now there are dishes in the sink again, a new lot of dishes. I did laundry, but forgot the last load which was towels, and they're just finishing spinning now and still need to go in the dryer.
I took my new amplifier out of the box, and plugged both my guitar and the headphones into it, and it's really fun, I tell you. The very first preset is a very rock and rolly one, with lots of distortion, and when you finish a chord it echoes like you're in a very large concert hall. I practiced the open chords and a few power chords again, and am anxious to learn a whole song soon. So that's something.
I took my work computer to a coffee shop downtown, because they have wireless, and I thought I could do work stuff there. I could not. I could see my work calendar, but couldn't get to anything through a browser. I'm sure there are some instructions saved on my machine somewhere, and I did it wrong, but in the end I did nothing, just turned it on and off again, had a coffee and muffin, and moved on.
Rather than coming home I went to see a movie, that "Nick and Norah" one. I'd heard good reviews, but it was basically a teen film about courtship in that awkward time of life when you're still in high school. And I can't believe New York high schoolers get up to as much and stay out as late as these kids did. Especially with the drinking age being 21 and thus probably the entrance age for all the clubs. I was 45 minutes early for the next showing of the movie, and I didn't have anything to read or anything to write on with me, so I just sat and ate a whole thing of popcorn before the previews even started.
One other thing I did this evening instead of unpacking boxes or doing work work was to watch an hour-long show on TLC about people with hoarding disorders. Looked from the rooms on the screen, full to the ceiling with racks and storage boxes and piles of stuff, slightly to each side, to my big towering piles of boxes that I can't seem to do anything about. A psychological expert on the show said that the hoarders all seem to be intelligent, articulate people, but hide the state of their homes from people. Yep, that too. And that their hoarding is often some kind of grief reaction to an early trauma. Could that be what's wrong with me? Because the block is really quite severe. I tell myself, in my mother's helpful voice, "Just do one box per night". Break it down into small parts. I have a row of empty file cabinets - lovely file cabinets - just waiting to receive all the stuff that's left. I can't even start. I set whole weekends aside, week after week after week, I give myself deadlines like on my anniversary of moving here (Oct 26) I will have it all done and have a party, and then I just sit there.
I could almost have started at about 8pm tonight. Well, 9, because the vampire show was on HBO. And a thought occurred to me that has occurred to me in the past. It takes me until Sunday night to put my personality back together, and then it's Monday and I have to start all over again.
Pray for me. I know I'm just blocked. Surely a smart girl can make a plan and get out of this paralysed hell that I am in? Or am I making too big a deal of it all?
I did hardly anything. I feel like I spent all the time, but more or less everything is still exactly where it was on Friday.
I did the dishes, which needed doing, and even did another lot of dishes, but now there are dishes in the sink again, a new lot of dishes. I did laundry, but forgot the last load which was towels, and they're just finishing spinning now and still need to go in the dryer.
I took my new amplifier out of the box, and plugged both my guitar and the headphones into it, and it's really fun, I tell you. The very first preset is a very rock and rolly one, with lots of distortion, and when you finish a chord it echoes like you're in a very large concert hall. I practiced the open chords and a few power chords again, and am anxious to learn a whole song soon. So that's something.
I took my work computer to a coffee shop downtown, because they have wireless, and I thought I could do work stuff there. I could not. I could see my work calendar, but couldn't get to anything through a browser. I'm sure there are some instructions saved on my machine somewhere, and I did it wrong, but in the end I did nothing, just turned it on and off again, had a coffee and muffin, and moved on.
Rather than coming home I went to see a movie, that "Nick and Norah" one. I'd heard good reviews, but it was basically a teen film about courtship in that awkward time of life when you're still in high school. And I can't believe New York high schoolers get up to as much and stay out as late as these kids did. Especially with the drinking age being 21 and thus probably the entrance age for all the clubs. I was 45 minutes early for the next showing of the movie, and I didn't have anything to read or anything to write on with me, so I just sat and ate a whole thing of popcorn before the previews even started.
One other thing I did this evening instead of unpacking boxes or doing work work was to watch an hour-long show on TLC about people with hoarding disorders. Looked from the rooms on the screen, full to the ceiling with racks and storage boxes and piles of stuff, slightly to each side, to my big towering piles of boxes that I can't seem to do anything about. A psychological expert on the show said that the hoarders all seem to be intelligent, articulate people, but hide the state of their homes from people. Yep, that too. And that their hoarding is often some kind of grief reaction to an early trauma. Could that be what's wrong with me? Because the block is really quite severe. I tell myself, in my mother's helpful voice, "Just do one box per night". Break it down into small parts. I have a row of empty file cabinets - lovely file cabinets - just waiting to receive all the stuff that's left. I can't even start. I set whole weekends aside, week after week after week, I give myself deadlines like on my anniversary of moving here (Oct 26) I will have it all done and have a party, and then I just sit there.
I could almost have started at about 8pm tonight. Well, 9, because the vampire show was on HBO. And a thought occurred to me that has occurred to me in the past. It takes me until Sunday night to put my personality back together, and then it's Monday and I have to start all over again.
Pray for me. I know I'm just blocked. Surely a smart girl can make a plan and get out of this paralysed hell that I am in? Or am I making too big a deal of it all?
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Reflections of gratitude
When things turn out to be less bad than you'd feared, you should stop and remember to be grateful.
1. When the last two fingers on my left hand hurt, for months, I was sure it was the start of rheumatoid arthritis. It runs in the family, it follows the same gene as Crohn's Disease which I already had in my 20's, I've thought for a long time that I'm bound to develop it sooner or later, and this made me think it was sooner. But I went to the doctor, got a pile of blood tests, and although I had a very slight elevation in my ANA factor (whatever that is), it turned out that a few days of lots of Advil fixed the fingers up, and although sometimes they're still a bit stiff in the morning when I get up, it's not the beginning of a lifetime of chronic pain and debilitation.
2. When I noticed that I had to hold vitamin bottles and soup cans a little further away to read the ingredients list, I thought, it's time, here it is. I'm over 40 and my close vision is going. I thought I would have to get glasses and wear them all the time, I thought I might even need bi-focals because I had trouble with distance vision in the past. Well, it turns out my distance vision actually got better - the eye doctor thought it was from lack of use and too much close work rather than a change in lens shape. So I don't need extra glasses for driving at night. Just some reading specs, and since the correction was symmetrical I could just get some off-the-rack glasses at the drug store (actually they were from a glasses chain at the mall, but same difference), and I don't even need them that frequently, only for meetings in which we have to read tiny numbers on spreadsheets.
3. I was having belly problems, on and off, and they were getting worse and worse until they got really severe. I couldn't eat anything without getting an upset stomach, and I spent one whole Saturday in pain a few weeks ago, so I knew it wasn't just work-stress-butterflies. Just about then I had a grocery crisis, though, and switched from cereal with soy milk to toast for breakfast, and the problem went right away. Who knew that soy caused digestive upsets? And I was having lots of it - after the soy milk at breakfast, then sometimes soy yogurt, and soy lattes at Starbucks, and tofu in stir-fry, and Tofutti ice cream bars in the evening. Cut it all out, and the problem went away immediately. Crohn's Disease often recurs in one's 40's, and I was braced for a few months of invasive tests and then possibly steroids and diet restrictions to treat it, but it was just the soy.
I am very grateful that none of these things turned out to be as serious as I thought they were going to be. I am incredibly thankful for the continuing good health of my aging body, touch wood. I am sure I will come up with new things to worry about, but today I stop and reflect that none of these things are it.
1. When the last two fingers on my left hand hurt, for months, I was sure it was the start of rheumatoid arthritis. It runs in the family, it follows the same gene as Crohn's Disease which I already had in my 20's, I've thought for a long time that I'm bound to develop it sooner or later, and this made me think it was sooner. But I went to the doctor, got a pile of blood tests, and although I had a very slight elevation in my ANA factor (whatever that is), it turned out that a few days of lots of Advil fixed the fingers up, and although sometimes they're still a bit stiff in the morning when I get up, it's not the beginning of a lifetime of chronic pain and debilitation.
2. When I noticed that I had to hold vitamin bottles and soup cans a little further away to read the ingredients list, I thought, it's time, here it is. I'm over 40 and my close vision is going. I thought I would have to get glasses and wear them all the time, I thought I might even need bi-focals because I had trouble with distance vision in the past. Well, it turns out my distance vision actually got better - the eye doctor thought it was from lack of use and too much close work rather than a change in lens shape. So I don't need extra glasses for driving at night. Just some reading specs, and since the correction was symmetrical I could just get some off-the-rack glasses at the drug store (actually they were from a glasses chain at the mall, but same difference), and I don't even need them that frequently, only for meetings in which we have to read tiny numbers on spreadsheets.
3. I was having belly problems, on and off, and they were getting worse and worse until they got really severe. I couldn't eat anything without getting an upset stomach, and I spent one whole Saturday in pain a few weeks ago, so I knew it wasn't just work-stress-butterflies. Just about then I had a grocery crisis, though, and switched from cereal with soy milk to toast for breakfast, and the problem went right away. Who knew that soy caused digestive upsets? And I was having lots of it - after the soy milk at breakfast, then sometimes soy yogurt, and soy lattes at Starbucks, and tofu in stir-fry, and Tofutti ice cream bars in the evening. Cut it all out, and the problem went away immediately. Crohn's Disease often recurs in one's 40's, and I was braced for a few months of invasive tests and then possibly steroids and diet restrictions to treat it, but it was just the soy.
I am very grateful that none of these things turned out to be as serious as I thought they were going to be. I am incredibly thankful for the continuing good health of my aging body, touch wood. I am sure I will come up with new things to worry about, but today I stop and reflect that none of these things are it.
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