Monday, December 29, 2008

the problem with holidays...

I thought we were on good terms, at least good enough to visit with the grandkids.

One call on Saturday, uninviting us all from a new year's trip derailed the whole thing.

Without a doubt, the call with a voice ragged with anger was made in the heat of an argument...and I was caught in the wake. Still. How could I in good conscience decide to bring kids into that atmosphere? Why would I want to rain some of the patterns of my Christmas past down on them?

As I've said before, we all have our sack of rocks. Some days the bag becomes too heavy to hold and we feel like flinging the contents around...

Friday, December 19, 2008

4 day work weeks a reality...be careful of what you wish for

So...I just found out that a former action hero has put all civil service workers in my state on a 2 day a month furlough. Even though I said that I wanted a 4 day work week, I wanted it to be at my own choosing. But the universe choses to listen to things at the strangest junctures.

So now...I want to make the best of it. Starting my company holds the highest priority right now.

  1. fictitious business name to-be-filed
  2. newspaper circulation to-be-filed
  3. bank account set up
  4. paypal account set up
  5. bed out of office - it has to go.
  6. basic editorial schedule to-be-developed.
  7. figure out how to combine existing twitter & blogs
  8. New Year's postcard mailer - (email/ hard copy) sent out announcing the business.

Monday, December 8, 2008

I love 4 day work weeks...

Coming off a 4 day mini-holiday. Got sick, got better, got a lot of stuff done. I know there's a recession/depression but dang...I love only working 3 days a week. OK so it's not feasible for me to do that right now unless I worked 10 hour days. My sup is never going to go for that.

But, I can work it so that maybe I have only a 4 day work week. That I can afford and I think for my sanity, I'm going for it. My industriousness at home goes way up...so does my creativity. Maybe that'll make me want to spend less money. I've seen it documented that being a wage slave truly does increase one's need to spend in direct correlation with dispair.

Willing to give it a go.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

I'm hungry

Just a quickie as right about now I should be getting ready for the boring income producing marathon (a.k.a. work). Yesterday I went to another town to pick up something that I'd ordered and I fell in love. Not with a person but with the town.

Living where I live, in a highly urban enclave where the central operating principle is more commonly the response to crime rather than quality of life, it was so refreshing, so mouthwatering even (think about the difference between a nice juicy 1 pound cheeseburger on a white bread bun from your local burger shack and say a dinner at a 4 star restaurant that consisted of a perfect truffle-infused sliver of salmon with a clutch of baby heirloom carrots and zucchini on a buttery pool of polenta). Both meals one would look forward to but the latter is smaller, more exquisite and more expensive. One might be hungry after the latter unless one adjusted one's expectations; poorer too.

So back to my beloved town. It shares all of those qualities of the salmon meal, in that it is transcendent and beautifully sublime and will require sacrifice. But I think to aspire to live there is like waiting for a perfect meal rather than settling for a merely hearty one.

I cannot afford to shift to eating heavenly fish right now (my appetites are too voracious) but indeed I have something to aspire to.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

The Pull of Mumbai

I read this rousing entry about Mumbai from Friday's NY Times...and I couldn't agree more. Mumbai or Bombay as I remember it from my youth, was for all it's problems an enchanted city for me. There was an undercurrent of the mystical and magical. It was a place of riotous life and death, a place where everything seemed suffused with meaning...this despite the crushing poverty we experienced leaving the airport and driving through the narrow streets at night lined with people sleeping near the curb, the flooding in the streets during monsoons and the choking stench of humanity during the dry months.

It seemed to me each person I met, whether well-to-do or destitute contained this concentrated kernel of desperate beauty, of ambition, of raw possibility. I've had a white hot streak in me to make a pilgrimage there for years...and if I had the wherewithall (which I unfortunately don't), I think I would travel there in the same way I ached to return to New York (my birthplace) after 9/11 or longed to return to the roost in San Francisco (my adopted home) after the Loma Prieta earthquake.

Note to self: maybe I should start listening to these urges.

Maturity--for a time


I don't know if it was the 10 day break from my job or me finding my own rhythm but this Thanksgiving was more satisfying than many in memory. We did a lot of cooking...quality cooking without making huge quantities of food. It was nice to know I was working hard to make a really delicious meal...working hard for something I WANT is always a wonderful revelation.

And I coasted on that high the entire extended vacation and it had a palatable effect. Things that typically would have vexed me, didn't seem as difficult or as impactful. In fact it was only today that I found myself returning to my old pinched self, well aware that my rat-race begins again tomorrow. Once again I try to imagine myself doing something as remunerative but considerably more enriching....

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Living, Making it.

I walked down the stairs, mentally restacking the pantry before our company arrived when my wife called out to me, “I want you to stay home with me”.

“What?,” I said? We’d had this discussion before.

“I want you to quit your job…you don’t like it and it makes you cranky every day. I mean we can live on my retirement. I can put you on my health insurance. It’d be tight but we can do it. I want you home with me and I know you’d rather be home.”

Of course she was right. I didn’t like my job and I would be happier at home. But we’d be a hell of a lot poorer. And who QUITS a job when the unemployment rate is soaring? I was not a “professional” (doctor, lawyer, programmer, etc.) who could work from home. I was an administrator. Bored, overworked and 9 years away from hitting the perfect age for my pension plan. And administrators don’t work from home. Administrators work at the jobsite so the other classifications (the well paid professionals) can work from home.

Still I miss her since she’s retired. We lead very separate lives now. But I can’t depend on her financially, that’s not right and I haven’t the foggiest idea how to support myself to the tune of my currently feeble salary by freelancing.

So this is what 46 is about. 46 is like 26 is like 36 except there are fewer choices and less time to save for retirement. If your risks didn’t pan out in the previous 2 decades, there’s even less of a chance of it working now unless you are independently wealthy which I’m not or really determined. Which I haven't been but I'm shooting for.

Of course from the standpoint of numerology, I’m ripe for jumping off the rat-race train. I’m a wisker’s length from leaping headlong into a questionable writing or life coaching or something that brings the things I love to the forefront. But there’s a price to be paid for such freedom and I’m mindful of paying the bill.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

I miss my bff's

You know what’s hard? When your bff’s start drifting away. I used to have what I considered two very, very close friends…people that I felt a kinship with, people that made me laugh and who I’d let see me cry.

They weren’t my friends originally—they were my partner’s. But I basked in the glow of their companionship and then we became close in our own right; they became like extended family.

Once my partner retired, her attitudes toward these friends changed somewhat. She felt less beholden to them, had less of a desire to caretake the friendships. And I didn’t pick up the slack. Cracks began to show as we took them for granted, canceled dates to go do other things, or declined invitations just to stay at home.

The result now is both friends have moved themselves over to other friendships, making those other friendships primary, subtly counting on others to be their support and family. And where does that leave us? Without the family that we choose.

I don’t blame my partner. She was doing what felt right for her, protecting her beleaguered spirit. Many people come to depend on, then lean on, then deplete her strong soul. Between those demands and work that she hated, she was just exhausted. With retirement her priorities shifted and she wanted to breathe a little...to take a well earned vacation from emotional obligations.

I do blame myself though. If the quality of of their company were that important to me, I should have made more of an effort with these individuals. I should have picked up the banner or the phone and called them, had them over for dinner or met for a quick bite even when it wasn’t in my comfort zone…because now, all I feel is sad…it’s so hard for me to make friends and as I look around my life, the opportunities to make new ones is exceedingly small.

So, now I need to do the work of “friend curation”. I just hope it isn’t too late.

Friday, November 7, 2008

A couple mornings after

Mulling over the events of the week.

The election of Obama, which despite all my misgivings about him, is essential to our nation's future. But it is also wrought with anxiety. Our country has slid into a state so far from grace the necessity of prioritizing the most troubling issues will feel more like failure than intelligent governance.

I have no idea if he can pull off.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Get off the bus

So I’ve been reading Adam Gopnik… a man whose writing I find so intoxicating, it goes beyond reverence. Sometimes I feel lucky that I am not a god because in the personage of that god, I’d have wanted to steal Gopnik’s talent, his inquisitive, incisive but ironically worshipful/devoted view of the world around him. He is riotously self-referential and tangential in ways that so mimick my mind my best days, that I feel like he is channeling me…he is like my better half--- independent of my body, up, walking around eating a bagel, free of the flotsam that bedevils my everyday voice.

To wit…he’s a lover of those twin cultural icons, Paris and New York. I am a native if exiled New Yorker and a Francophile to the bone. These have been his principal subjects, though shot through with the gestalt of parenthood. That latter plain is one I can’t claim as my native land but I did a good 12-15 months abroad there my senior year, so I have a good working knowledge of the material.

I contrast Gopnik’s take on the world…arguably a world that has no concrete place in my life with the worlds populated with so-called California writers like Richard Rodriguez or in decades previous Joan Didion. I appreciate the nuances of both their writings, on how they find the nerve of a colonized place. I value the criss-cross, multi-hued points of view they present in their work…but there are points of separation. Rodriguez because he writes academically and knowingly with a cultural virtuosity that is very distinct and divergent from my own; while with Didion disconnection occurs largely due to the expanse of time. (Paradoxically, this ‘teseract’ of time is bridged for me by her amazingly textured latter-day descriptions of life observed by a transplanted Californian woman surviving the death of her family in Manhattan. I unfortunately could relate to the numbing sting of that loss).

But to return to Gopnik, for some reason I feel he is key to my own higher abilities, not because he is a god (well really, we all might be in our particular, highest achieving universes), but because he functions as more of a sentient trigger, a personal talisman that points the way to my honeypot of genius. That I am enamored of his talent is rather pedestrian...if I allowed my celebration of his skill to run amok, unexamined and delirious, I have a fear of it devolving dangerously close to the path of the sycophant a la Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories. We become transcendent by association, not by achievement.

That I should use it to bootstrap my own gifts is perhaps the more difficult and companionable ambition, which is why I write this entry now. Accessing our greatness (as opposed to our idiosyncrasies, foibles, neurosis, and assorted low-hanging damaged bits) is not for the faint of heart. It invites doubt, scorn, and a bit of self-torture. It cleaves close to vanity, in the territory of pride, nestled snuggly in the county seat of narcissism. I don’t want to go there simply because I’ve made the trip before and not had much fun…neither did my traveling companions.

So to date, my answer to this call to evolve has simply been not to get on the bus. I intuit my capacity to err and then merely sit on my hands. Once again, I hope this time, I’m woman enough to risk more.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Personal is the political

Riveting television on the Public Television Channel early this morning. British documentary on the Chicago 7. What impacted me the most was the discussion by the defendants regarding how what they were doing would bring about change and an increase in activism in successive generations. Um, that’d have been my generation. What have I done to promote freedom and civil rights? In my mind precious little except vote in almost every election I’ve been eligible to vote in (I think I’ve missed one in the last 14 years). I’ve also exercised my right to marry my longtime sweetheart each time it’s been available (2003, invalidated. And now 2008).


Other than that? I go to work every day. I pay my taxes. I show up. I try to learn every day (doesn’t always work but it’s wonderful when it does.)


There are more things I can do like quit being a PUMA and start stumping for Obama. It’s time, it’s time.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Here's the thing...


Here’s the thing. Writers, authors, those who write fiction, there are many, hundreds, no hundreds of thousands that are good…very good. In my youth and young adulthood I was a compulsive reader…a regular at bookstores and libraries. I was the kind of kid that read under the covers, read at the breakfast table before school, in the bathroom, in the car. Who dreamt about becoming a writer, the sop who looked up words she didn’t know and had just one item on her birthday and Christmas lists (“Just BOOKS, please”).

I inhaled books, devoured them whole in marathon sittings. The silly bespectacled type who literally fell in love with the characters I read about…so much so that I was almost driven to steal one book (a Doctor Seuss book about a creature named Bartholomew) in 2nd grade because I didn’t want to stop my chaste unrequited tryst with the title character. In my teens and the threshold of my twenties, I dedicated myself to the spectacular heights of science fiction, consuming page after page of text on monsters real and imagined, soaring in speculative worlds, my mind and soul leaping from the heights of the fanciful alternate realities.


But not long after that, the life long love affair turned sour. I stopped reading fiction. I turned to magazines with their glossy therapeutic promise of retail therapy and newspaper stories, with a more controlled emotional core. I spent years getting no closer to fiction than the occasional feature-length piece, read on a plane or at a coffee house. I became a dedicated disciple of non-fiction if I read at all and turned to radio and it’s evil stepsister, television. I had to stop because the fictive slipstream had become the single note story of pathos. The negative narrative of most fiction I laid my hands was completely dispiriting.


But last night, two decades later, stuck for years in a job that had it’s own special brand of negative narrative, I tried to stoke that fire again. I went to the store determined to spend all my book card money and bought a couple of cheap, hard cover anthologies, “contemporary short stores of the late 20th century” or some such. I decided to start slowly and limited my reading to author’s whose names I recognized, of which there were quite a few. The pieces in both volumes were from writers born in the 40’s and 50’s mainly but there were a smattering born in the 60’s too.

You could tell which writer hailed from which decade by the way each story was assembled. The former were more conventionally constructed, careful, contained, polished to gleaming gloominess while the latter more stream of consciousness, with multiple sentence fragments and angst-ridden tangential passages tossed about.


None were without virtuosity, a striking brilliance that one just doesn’t get watching television. The expert technique to a person, male, female, older and younger, was intoxicating….I mean they were all very, very good. Inventive, descriptive, transcendent in their use of craft and structure. But they all shared that same fatal trait I’d tracked in my younger years… the stories to a greater or lesser extent were all depressing. One after the other, I flipped through very personally excruciating accounts of dead or dying loved ones, difficult marriages, abominable childhoods and crushing jobs. The terribly private news of mental depressives tumbled from the pages in beautiful, ripped language.

And then I remembered completely why I’d stopped writing in the first place and why I’d subsequently decided (how did I forget???) that writing wasn’t an appropriate career choice for me…because I was just as depressive as the folks who drove me to sneak not just one but two pieces of chocolate cake after I’d come off a reading bender. And I didn’t want to write or read that. I didn’t want to be talented kill-joy (Yes, in my heart, I know I have the potential to become a world-class fun-sucker).

I agree, stories must contain conflict but this was “discordapallooza”, this was mega-strife, a fracas in every paragraph, toxic anti-nourishment. Instantly I recalled one very bad year in my life when I knew in no uncertain terms that if I kept consuming this very cunningly crafted bile, there would no longer be a me. So cold turkey, I stopped. Amazing what we can forget.

But while the memory of why I left off being a reader and subsequently swore off writing was undergrounded, the urge to read and write--so primal-- never went away. It was never replaced by anything else though, so in my current career I am a nothing.

And now belatedly, I know rationally that fiction is not limited to the tragic and that one can start over at any age…although I pragmatically understand that only former doctors and lawyers, trust-fund babies and stay at home wives can painlessly realize this affirmation.

And now that I know…what do I do with this information?

What indeed? But it is a wonderful realization worthy of a Sacred Life Sunday. And no I don't have a picture yet that describes what I'm feeling but if i do find one I'll post it here.

Sunday, September 28, 2008


Without a doubt I am thankful for my Sunday's of late...because my step-family--once so very difficult to handle--- comes to visit. A six year old, a thirteen year old and a thirty-four year old, all girls, all different but all vital to my happiness visit to do laundry, eat lunch and socialize at the end of each week.

None of us is church going but this ritual does feel like good spiritual food. This coming together makes us all better, even if we don't completely understand how it works right now.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Graciously I'm off today...and have been lazing around for most of it. At first I was mad at myself but then I thought...hey...what's wrong with down time? I worked exceedingly hard this week. So...leisure accepted! Now, though, I want to follow through and figure out how to do yearly progressions...I have a feeling this will be the key.

In any new age counseling that I've done, I've found that the progressions...the descriptions of what an individual is going through in their current age cohort is the most compelling portion of the reading. Yes, clients are fascinated by personality descriptions and insight into their hopes and dreams. But what any such reading really comes down to is "what happens next?" Heck that's the very reason I learned to do numerology in the first place; I wanted to find meaning in my otherwise very conventional life.

And it has helped...I do feel less adrift. But, with time I've learned that real "meaning" is different for each person. And sometimes we forget how to think or rather we forget how we think because we're too bombarded by life.

This afternoon is about going to A source and reconciling it with MY source.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Sacred Life Sunday

As a way to try to deepen my commitment to writing here, I'm going to try at least for this next Sunday, being part of Sacred Life Sunday. The purpose is to center one's attention on what we love, what we are grateful for, to concentrate on what connects us with our center. Here's to finding that center, every week.

In memorium


"...learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master."

-Excerpted from 2005 Kenyon Commencement Address - May 21, 2005 by David Foster Wallace

What an amazing bit of insight from a tortured writer. DFW committed suicide earlier this month. But the fact that he did so doesn't debunk the importance of this in the passage. In life, in our spiritual practice, in everything we strive for, if we don't approach things with the proper mindset, we may find ourselves at a dangerous cross roads.

Closer...

C had a wonderful idea about starting to do workshops. It sparked something in me so I’m seriously thinking of following it forward. She suggested I do numerology seminars and it seemed a natural. Since reading a new book on “what I’d be good at when I grow up (ok when am I not reading about this???), I’ve determined that I enjoy teaching, instructing, giving people insight on how to do things. It makes me feel alive.

And perhaps I don't want to stop at a little old divination workshop...maybe I can teach other things? Time to dive into my past to see what topics might work.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

In plain sight

Why am I drawn to this picture of a tattooed woman holding a craft-embellished stuffed animal? Because part of me wants to be her, and could be her in another parallel universe. Because I love the aspect of camouflage in this picture. There she is, posing in a fully formed persona.

When one reads the article associated with this picture, the reader gets a clear idea of what's important to her, what drives her but; really, the interior life of this person is very well hidden. I love that feat. It's kind of why I wear funky glasses and why I sport my own very timid and low-key tattoo on my own wrist. (and why I daydream about having more tattoos and funkier clothes.) It's all part and parcel of the theatrical visual aspect one needs to construct to be a more public person.

People sport fictitious or fantastical public personas all the time (think Salvador Dali, the San Francisco Brown twins, Barak Obama, Dame Edna, Sarah Palin). These carefully established roles are worn like business clothes. It's a uniform and these forms follow function.

For years my coping mechanism was to hide in plain sight, to try to be invisible. It worked rather successfully but I've grown tired of that old game and its expectations (i.e. - fawning sycophancy). It's time to try a new one.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Another visit from the oversoul...

Hello my dear-
I know you feel passionate about this moment...about how it is stealing time away from you and in a way that is true because our imagination sometimes is as alive to us as "real" life but...in another way, and perhaps it is the better way of seeing it...in another way there is no stealing going on at all. There is just life for as long as it lasts, for as long as you are given it and what you do here, each day---this is your life. Of course, as humans we all want other things. We'd all prefer to let our inner puppy out to romp or sleep all day. And some get to do that. But some of us, people like you and me, we work for a living and for our retirement. We must plan and be diligent even as the dull thud of work against our soul threatens to render us somnambulant.

You must accept work for what it is...work. I'll say this again. You have to work. That's it. You must until you don't have to...and I'd say that was a good 7 to 10 years away. And let's be really clear...if you don't want your standard of living to be reduced too much, you have to work until at least 57. That's 11 (actually 10.78) years from now...so you must find a way to make that work. So start figuring out how you're going to do it.

One way is that you're not going to stay in this job the entire time. Start scoping out other jobs that aren't as demanding...make it work.
This is a race that's not even 3/4's over yet so YOU HAVE TO FIND YOUR SECOND WIND. And yes, you hate the fact that your work is so procedural...but you like it too. There is something in it that you can find to motivate you.

How can you find that wind? Strive to be timely. Work hard first and then play later. But do play. For example. Take all your breaks. Like now.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Chop my own wood and carry it too (it make sense when you read the end of the entry)

I talked to Mom last night and as she suspected, she's losing sight again in one of her eyes. Although surgery is an option, it was very traumatic news and brought up lots of memories about Dad. I felt very bad for her and also extremely thankful that my sister has returned and is there to be with her.

What's ironic:
  • When we were growing up, my sister was the queen of caustic. I cannot begin to count how many times G made Mom cry, lashed out, sought out her weak spot for sport, etc. Now, when Mom bemoans all of the tribulations of the present time, my sister says, "But I'm your blessing!" And damned if it isn't true.
  • My mother had 32 years of indulgent living. 32 years where my Dad made life heaven on earth for her. He's been gone 3 years now and Mom as taken to saying "I'm just over all this stuff. I'm tired of living." To which I reply "If you were on a plane tomorrow and it was going down, would you want to live?" Of course the answer is a meek "yes". It's that she's exhausted from how unfun this life patch is. She's mentally and physically drained by the effort it takes to steer her own boat. Once, whilst I was in university and working 3 jobs, I tried to explain it to her but it didn't compute. She could not remember that the simple act of living on your own could wear you down 'til you are a mere ghostly impression of your former self. I can relate to what she's feeling now and put my own hard times in perspective. Adversity can make us more resilient (now just to remember that lesson myself).
  • I recently returned from a reluctant trip to the wilderness. Although I protested loudly that "I don't do domestic travel or nature", I went and spent a fair amount of time trying to understand why everyone else was enjoying being outdoors so much. Physical exercise and spending time in the woods or near the mountains has never been part of my family's dance card. We are an indoor people. But Thoreau and Jack La Lane were not wrong. The natural beauty of the earth and the virtues of physical activity cannot be disputed. And they are valuable tools to fight the pulverizing blows of depression and hard times. And here's the final irony: I was able to vividly communicate this to Mom, having just arrived at these new revelations myself.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

becoming - part two

Back on the twenty-first, I mentioned that I was going to change my name. Well, I did it! It's still scary and weird. Not everyone is happy about it and each time I do my signature, I still have to actually recite my surname to remember who I am now. But each time I do, it makes me smile!

Lots of paperwork still to go ...today I request new business cards and a new id badge...important pieces of the pie.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

How it happens...

Wonderful quote from the late Evelyn Keyes:

"To become a big movie star like Joan Crawford you need to wear blinders and pay single-minded attention to your career. Nobody paid attention to me, including me. I was the original Cinderella girl, looking for the happy ending in the fairy story. But my fantasy prince never came."

For me, the fantasy prince is satisfying life's work, which I think part of me thinks will just drop in my lap. News flash, it doesn't. Focus, focus, focus.

Things look better in the light of day

Had a fantastic night of sleep last night (maybe because I turned the lights OUT?). Anyway, starting to feel less indigo, partly due to the proximity of her return, partly to the fact that next week is a short week and I start in earnest on my new database/web app project.

I have to admit, I adore parts of IT, the web development, the freedom to dream up and create new forms and formats, new structures that help people do what they want to do. I've missed that terribly since I left the IT department. But IT's entire mission was fixing hardware and I promised myself I would not be on my knees climbing under another desk EVER just to get access to the cool toys in my 'downtime'.

So I fell back into my old standby discipline (which surprisingly has become 'hip' & 'green') even though I am mostly bored silly by it's bureaucratic pall. If I am disciplined, I can make opportunities. Please Goddess let me make them.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

I wonder how to be happy?

Just talked to my sweetie and I know I want to be more independent but she sounded so vital, so full of life...I can't wait for her to get home!

Last week my mother talked to me about her latest relationship with her ex- husband (my estranged bio-father). In it, she unapologetically said that being independent and strong as an individual is basically not as fun as being in a relationship. When it came right down to it, she'd rather have someone order her food for her restaurant rather than being alone. She'd rather have a partner to double date with rather than knowing how to manage her own money or drive herself anywhere (because you can get people for that, you know?).

This whole time that sweetie has been gone I started thinking...am I that different? I mean I had all these ideas of things that I was going to accomplish and all I did was a few twitters and blog posts . All this and dealing with the non-stop coughing and windedness that comes with my chronic bronchitis. I'd say my natural state is this side of cranky.

What will it take to make me happy?

In this article, writer Alain de Botton talks about the benefits of being more happy, not the least of which is having a stronger immune system. I'd love some of that!

One thing...I do think I am a clinical depressive personality (inherited it from the bio-dad) and yes I've tried the med's and I've tried therapy...neither really worked. The only thing that ever, ever worked was one month back in my 30's where I found my footing, somehow.

Though it wasn't the strategy then, maybe my strategy now is just to stay in a relationship with an A personality that kicks my butt into gear, no matter how much I resent being butt kicked. ( This isn't a particularly fun state of affairs for the butt kicker ).

God, I've got to be stronger somehow than this, if only to NOT be like my mother or the bio-dad. And for the sweet butt kicker.

Day 17 or how to go from moon to comet?

I had a dream last night. I was back in college and had lots of room mates. As is natural for me, there was one that I looked up to like a big sister, one whose words doted on, a person who I thought was funnier or smarter or better than everyone else, a person whose corona was like a magnet, irresistible drawing me in.

I was like a rogue moon pulled into a satellite orbit around a heavier, denser heavenly body, basking in the dazzle, feeling more secure lassoed by the gravity and cosmic polarity. Everything was illuminated and bright,

Even the course of my life seemed more certain, for I borrowed from their material to create my own luminescent path along the horizon.

But here’s the thing about the bright lights...they always leave. The have an agenda: to blaze their own trail. And no matter how high the luminary’s regard for her little moon, celestial bodies will leave to pursue their own dreams, for they are—actually--comets spinning off to the tune of their own agenda’s, leaving a trail of debris behind them. They have their internal compass set to a specific orbital period and when it’s time to go, it’s time to go!

I’m always crushed to watch them flash off, because I seem to lose my own motivation without the reflected light.

So how do I become my own icy spectacle?

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Where is the bridge (in progress)

Where is the bridge from here to there
where the birds sing
and I don't hate rich children
or have contempt for their stay at home mothers
or feel road rage
or derision for the kids hanging out with nothing good to do at the gas station
or distain for wild-eyed Obama haters and lovers
or impatience with big-bodied spiders in my home forcing me to assassinate them
or irritation with cheerful people
or blind anger against corporations and my thighs
or feel the the scowl of obligation that crosses my brow everytime my mother calls?

Where the hell is it?

Day 11 - controlled melancholia

Sigh. Ok well, despite my best laid plans, I find that after working a 10 hour day in a job that is boring but busy and coming home at lunch and after work to feed, de-shit and pay attention to 4 animals, I've been fairly depressed. I've thought quite a number of times about writing myself out of it but instead I use the luxury of having to do nothing as a salve.

In the late evening, I finally have the sheer deliciousness of having some time without obligation stretch before me. In the hours roughly between 7 pm and 5:30am, save a couple of pee breaks for the dog, pretty much my only mandate is to lay slothlike on the floor watching the idiot box, surfing the net, reading or sleeping.

So that's what I do...I spend focused time indulging my need for a complete release from responsibility and unfortunately, that seems to be mutually exclusive of the act of writing.

As an aside...when she's home, I feel guilty with that bit of freedom. The house is spotless and often she'll make dinner and handle all the care for the animals...all that is wonderful but highlights what a shlub I am. The companionship is uniquely satisfying enough that it lifts me above the dull ache of monotony but then there are the responsibilities of companionship like doing things with friends, taking pains to tamp down my more slovenly behaviors, etc. With all this, I don't make a lot of time to do nothing and that generally leads me to glassy-eyed resignation.

This is difficult to explain to a Type 'A' personality. She doesn't understand this overarching compulsion to do nothing, mostly because she doesn't understand that it is my coping mechanism for a life I really can't stand.

Once, when I had a small, discrete, emotional breakdown in my 30's, I took six weeks off from work and it turned out to be the most productive happy time in my life. The first two weeks, I mostly cried all the time consumed with a cramping existential agony. But by the third week, the crushing depression cleared and I surprised myself by becoming willingly productive. I started cooking and experimenting with recipes. I cleaned. I exercised. I wrote. I started volunteering with a non-profit. I had a regular sleeping schedule and my insomnia dissipated. I finally felt on the road to something better, albeit poorer, but more me.

I've always attributed this period of personal renaissance to a freedom from obligation -- the latitude to pursue my own agenda, my own passions, a truer path.

I can't begin to say how very much I need this now...but 4 years away from my pension, that dream may need to be delayed once again. But I'm not sure how much more melancholy I can stomach.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Day 2 - 1 personal day

I ritually prepared myself for my forced 16 day retreat (that is, 16 days without a partner) by killing 3 spiders. Large spiders. Spiders, half as big as dimes, who when they fall from the ceiling, made a discernible sound ("pap"). I've never before seen a spider fall down...it must have been that extra gloss-high coat that tripped them up.

Anyway, I suppose killing the spiders was a test...of my strength. Of my ability to stop focusing on the sickening crawliness of a spider that must be squashed...of changing focus from the fact that I am alone here and not on vacation (with 4 puking animals ) for the next two weeks...and focus on the gift that is time uncoupled from coupledom. Who will I be? Will I surprise myself?

Now that I'm alone, what do I know, so far?
  • I love unbaked oatmeal cookies and espresso.
  • If you feed the cats first thing in the morning, they'll mostly leave you alone.
  • The dog, bless his old heart, will sleep all day, if given enough treats, pee breaks and a short, steep walk down the hill to get the mail or the paper.
  • It takes me a day or so to get settled into my writing voice.
  • Television holds almost no appeal, except right before bed.
  • I don't miss talking to anyone --yet.
  • I prefer being in my office because I've got the light just right in there.
  • The house has devolved into messiness fairly quickly (I'm going to try to right that ship this evening.).
  • Writing, when done after this much silence, is a benediction.
I wish I didn't have to go to work tomorrow or at least not for all 10 hours of it. Oh well, money and all that...

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Notes on changing my name

First, let me say, I’ve changed my name more than once…and each has been a transformative moment…I haven’t regretted leaving the old public image behind and trying on the new gal’s clothes. Now, after completing my first nuptials, I’m planning on changing my name yet again.
Why?
  • To claim my place as an adult. My other name changes had to do with my family’s divorces and remarriages, the remnants of my childhood. This name I’m taking on is my partner’s name. We actually picked out this surname for her in response to an identity theft incursion. Now, I’ll join her and we’ll start a new branch in our 21st century family tree.
  • I love beginnings. And isn’t what the threshold of marriage is all about? All last year I yearned for a certain elusive quality of newness. I was able to achieve some change by a shift in my career but I still want more pioneering elements to bring a discreetly different perspective. A name change creates a refreshed persona and I’m deliciously anticipating the ripples this additional development will bring.
  • And lastly, rather surprisingly actually, I want to change my name as another affirmative step in my desire to set and accomplish goals and objectives in my life. If left to my own devices, I’ve more of an inert personality, less likely to change things if the pot isn’t boiling over. Assertive action has typically brought me beneficial results. And so I go forth eager to complete this task I’ve set for myself.

It’ll take a couple of weeks for me to get all the paperwork completed. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

If at first you don't succeed, keep trying

My sister (whom I love dearly) is a high-level management type at a Fortune 100 company. She makes a lot of money, has traveled much of the world in first class and regularly rewards herself with expensive jewelry, clothing and furniture. She brash, iconoclastic, popular…the picture of success and she’s done it mostly on the strength of her sharp personality and work ethic. She loves her company (warts and all) and loves her work. Pretty impressive for someone without a college degree!

I on the other hand went to college, a pretty decent one on the west coast, and ended up in civil service and have slowly been building a pension for the last 17 years. I have also traveled extensively but on the cheap. I regularly reward myself by eating high caloric meals or purchasing books on Amazon. My more modest achievements were accomplished through a very low-key, intelligent but empathic personality. People love talking to me and I've always had a knack for making someone feel good about themselves.

I’m also a hard worker-verging on workaholic- but only when the situation calls for it. I hate my company and my work, I’m chronically sick on the job and I’m finding it exceedingly difficult to maintain my low-key, people-pleasing outlook. A pretty bad situation for anyone, college degree or not.


I don’t recount this story to you just so that I can whine (although, I did get a good whine in). I also use it to illustrate my belief that passionate people tend to succeed while those who turn away from the hard work required of their passion tend to whither. This is classic example of not listening to the melody of our master numbers, interpreting the insistent refrains to take important risks as so much static.

I’ve been a poster child for this kind of wrong-headed thinking. I always wanted to write (technical writing, essays, columns, etc.) but felt it would lead me down the path toward bag lady-dom. Thus…

  • I didn’t feel especially passionate at college and had no real plan when I finished.
  • I didn’t feel especially passionate when I got my first jobs. I was just happy to have a position that had benefits and a pension.
  • I boomeranged between several different types of work at the same agency with no real commitment. As soon as I found I the work insufferable, I bounced to another department…but the intervals between when the work was tolerable and when I detested it became shorter and shorter. There was virtually no honeymoon when I started my current job. I hated it the first day. I also lost hearing in one of my ears my second week on the job. It hasn’t returned yet.
  • I no longer even feel well enough to have casual conversations with people at work ( which were more like professional listening-- can you tell I'm an INFP???)...these seemingly innocuous conversations were my way of networking and staying connected to the hiring powers that be. Instead, I cough alot and appear tired and edgy. Definitely not an asset.
I’m fairly confident I’m not the only one who’s done this in their lives…moving through it like it didn’t matter. I’m lucky though. I’ve finally figured out that it DOES matter. And that the hard stuff of working up to our potential must be done sooner or later…but it can’t be denied.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

First post - an irregular committment to my inner life

I made up my mind I was going to commit to posting here after talking with C. We were having one of those conversations where I was whining and she was trying to be understanding. I knew that she could take my little pity parties only so long.

" If you don't like your life, change it!", she said not without a little frustration. "Make it happen! Instead of negatively obsessing on everything you haven't done in the last 46 years (actually I don't turn 46 until next month but, I should stop interrupting) , start positively obsessing over something you want to do. But stop complaining about it. You're a numerologist you should know this stuff by now."

Yes, on all counts, I should have and in the past I have for my clients, friends and acquaintances been exceedingly clear on how they should proceed. About how their destiny's are waiting to happen. All that is necessary is the will and courage to push forward.

But when it comes to me, it's as if I'm in a fog and it's very, very hard for me to see my way past my own divergences and excuses.

Take for example my career...

I'm a civil servant at a large state agency in a fairly bureaucratic discipline. Not surprisingly, it is rather detail oriented and there are lots of rules and regulations involved with very little room for creativity. My duties require me to be very analytical and my tasks are dry and deadline driven. The kicker is I just started, in fact I called in some favors to get this job and already, not even a month into it, I'm ready to chuck it.

If I did not in fact know that I was talking about me, I'd inform my brilliant client of the following:
  • That often, we are attracted to the things we need, not literally all the time but in a general way. In this job, the emphasis is on accountability, responsiveness and daily organization, just the sort of skill I'd need if I were to start freelancing again.
  • Though this job is tedious, it's also important--in that the work is clearly in the public good--in fact it has rather high 'green' rating. I left my previous job because I wasn't making a difference in the world and that left me feeling dead inside. I wanted to feel like I was a steward of something important.
So, on the good side, I'd tell my client, I have made a move closer to mastering certain essential skills and making good on my souls desire to do good. It's just that most times in life, our victories are iterative...they build upon each other giving us nothing less than what we're able to handle. If I, er or my client still feels stuck, that just means that I STILL HAVE MORE CHANGE TO MAKE.

So ok, this is a little career reality check, I'm not done yet, we're all still masterpieces in the making.