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.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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