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.

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....)

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?

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.

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

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.

Thanks!

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.