Small Steps Forward

you’d think that right after i asked the question (scroll down to the bottom), i’d be right on it, sitting down to peel off another blog post with focus and insight into the answer.

not so. not so at all.

in fact, as soon as i realized where the answer would be taking me, i beat a hasty retreat.

maybe it isn’t a retreat. maybe the journey to the answer is so long and the details so many that i must plan my trip within, take a few steps back to survey the terrain and pick my weapons tools before resuming my quest.

bullshit. it’s called avoidance.

the short answer is that i grew up with parental units who were quite comfortable doing completely illogical and nonsensical things, resisting any and all efforts by yours truly for explanation or examination.

so the short answer is, while i abhor the routine with all its trials and aggravations, it’s a very wonted dance, whose steps are so familiar to me that they take little to no thought whatsoever. i engage the fools i come across, knowing full well the waste of time i’m pursuing by giving them space in my life.

like that recliner in your living room with that pointy-ended spring that always gets you when get comfortable. you haven’t thrown it out yet because … well you don’t have a good reason, really, you just haven’t yet. you imagine that it’s going to take more energy to get rid of it and replace it. it won’t take more energy. in fact, it will be tremendously easy. but because you imagine it will take more energy, you don’t.

what makes me even write this today is that i’m now establishing another friendship, and this new friendship has its own warning signs. the red flags are waving — and i see them — and yet … maybe if i sit a certain way, i can avoid the pointy end of the spring.

madness.

it’s never that a person drinks. it’s how they drink that makes them an alcoholic. this particular person was drinking with her husband, then hiding the bottles because her family, who know the couple as teetotalers, “wouldn’t understand”.

that was really my first clue.

symptoms of a problem abounded… from the haphazard way she attacked a project, resisting all attempts at forethought and planning… from the way they constantly griped about their friends and family, never bringing up their concerns with the parties in question, always demeaning in private…

these were all part & parcel.

the reason i avoid people who drink isn’t the drinking itself — you could down a gallon of scotch while sitting beside me and i wouldn’t care. it’s all the crazy shit that goes with the person who needs to down a gallon of scotch. or the person who needs to hide empty wine bottles from non-understanding family members. it’s the crazy shit that goes with the drinking i want to avoid.

…

i am staring at a polaroid picture (read slower, you’re going to have to envision this to get it) placed inside a faux-gold-rimmed 5″x7″ picture frame. as i stare through the glass at the picture, i know that to mention it is to invite a backlash. something derisive, perhaps even scathing, from the person who placed the picture inside the frame. she’s not going to hear my observation as constructive; she’s not going to hear the inquiry. she’s going to hear a detraction, an insult.

and perhaps that’s fair. because i’m looking at this picture wondering “what the fuck was she thinking?”

and, i guess, that no matter how i say it, how eloquently or diplomatically i word my inquiry, that question will be at the heart of what i’m saying, and she’ll hear “what the fuck was she thinking?” as an insult. and respond from a wounded place.

what i really want to know is … how? how did she get to be 40-some-years-old with two children and think that the way to display polaroids was such? i mean… i believe in swimming against the current most of the time, but … well, what the fuck was she thinking?

and she is a crackhead. but still.

…

what grates me most is the emotional stuckness with alcoholics so much of the time is spent avoiding any depth or exploration of self or world. and that any attempts to do so is met with extreme resistance and hostility.

in short,

nothing is to be worked out

ever.

things are either worthy of praise or condemnation, and even then, either activity must only skim the surface; one is never to delve below the shallow waters.

ever.

so this is the role in my life which is continuously filled. as i open the door to allow some character to exit my life, i open another door for another character to enter.

i turned down a job with a stuck person only to accept a volunteer position with a stuck person.

what the fuck?

it’d be different if this was the first, or even the fifty-first time i’d done this. i can’t even count the number of people i’ve had filling this role.

what essential component in my makeup is missing which would this merry-go-round to cease?

Where were we? Oh yes, my incredible life.

I turned down the job offer. It seemed like an excellent opportunity at first. Then I looked a little deeper and realized the people I would be working with were stuck. Seriously stuck.

My coworker had a storage place full of stuff she wasn’t using. When I went to help her clear things out so she’d be clear for the project we’d be working on … together … she wasn’t interested.

She had 5 watches. All of which she wanted to hang onto. None of which were special.

Don’t get me wrong. Having 5 watches isn’t a bad thing in of itself. Having 5 watches, a storage place you can’t afford full of things you aren’t using … That’s something else altogether. And then to resist doing anything about it… I’m breaking out in hives even writing about it.

Then there’s the person who would have been my boss. Who was really upset with the last people she hired to do this job for her, but didn’t want to tell them. That in of itself is not a big deal. But.

She had hired someone else — we’ll call her Jai — to clean for the last gig. And the customers had complained about the cleanliness. So Jai must not have cleaned? Except that’s not what I heard or saw. To me, that means there’s an issue here that’s not being addressed, and, if I’m going to put on a bang-up event, I should probably dig a little deeper and see what the problem is. Do we need better cleaning supplies? Did she half-do it? Does she need more help? Only the boss doesn’t want to talk to Jai and she doesn’t want me to talk to Jai. The boss is adamant about that.

This doesn’t sound like an opportunity to me. It sounds like a certain form of death wrapped up in sparkly ribbons.

I declined the offer. And just as I was patting myself on the back for avoiding a complete blanking headache, I step out of the frying pan into the fire.

I don’t know how it happened. I went on a retreat and was offered a job. And this was after I told them I was a professional nut. Really, I used to scoff at those soap operas where so-and-so just got of jail and was offered some white-collar spot with no experience. Now I’m living testament that it happens sometimes.

So me and another woman are putting on the next retreat. Wanna come?

Remember when we were kids and looking for answers to a question? That eternal search for the why of things? And you’d ask An Adult, only to find that every blanking adult had a different answer to your question? Sometimes diametrically opposed answers to your question? If you were lucky, most of their answers would actually relate to your question and not be some off-the-wall Ask-A-Ninja-type reply.

Now, imagine a Borg-controlled world. One question, one answer. Each and every time.

Ah…. Bliss.

It’s posts like these which are the bane of my raw existence. Popeye’s, I can handle. I’ve reached the point in my raw food journey where I easily slough off the delicious smells wafting from that chicken shack. But this guy’s post on how to make your own bacon makes me remember meat, conveniently forgetting the sluggishness and mind-as-muck sensations which would inevitably follow, not to mention all the health concerns.

On the plus side, I modified a recipe and now have the raw food version of hamburger. I haven’t dehydrated it yet (it’s so good that it never makes it to the dehydrator), but I’m working on it. I’m eager to see what they taste like dehydrated, on a onion sesame bun with all the fixin’s. In the meantime, here’s the recipe: Continue Reading »

Ahhhh. The hunt for the perfect GTD app may have just ended for me. I have been testing OmniFu, but it hasn’t been doing it for me. Before I got my invite to test the alpha version of Fu, a fellow geek who had already played with it shared his dissatisfaction with the program. I was surprised. How could you not like OmniFu? Everyone knew it was the second coming. Then I got my invite and started working with it. … It’s just not me. I don’t know what it is. I can’t put my finger on it, but I just don’t get that warm and fuzzy feeling from it like I do with OmniWeb, OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner.

After all the hype of OmniFu these many months, I’ve worked up a dissatisfaction with Kinkless. It’s a great program, but now all of its faults and bugs are intolerable. I can’t go back. So I’m in GTD limbo. Well, I was until this morning. Continue Reading »

My cat’s on the keyboard again. I was searching for something on eBay, but now my cat’s sitting on my keyboard.

What is it about cats and computers anyway? Do they see us looking at our screens the way they look at birds and wonder what all the fuss is about since nothing on the screen is wriggling around?

I don’t know, but I’m afraid my cat is going to buy something and I’m going to have to pay for it.

The cursor is blinking at me.

Make it stop.

It only stops when it’s moving.
It’s only moving when I’m typing.

I just can’t think of anything to write.

The cursor is blinking at me.

Make it stop.

… ….

Arrrgh. Fine! I’ll write.

I’ve been thinking about how strong the impulse tendency has been in my life and tracing the roots of it. Looking back, I realized that a large part of my impatience stemmed from childhood. (What a surprise.)

I remember reading The House On Mango Street. The book is told from the point of view of Esperanza, a little girl whose family keeps moving. In one of the vignettes, Esperanza talks about the house they’re going to move to one day. A huge white house with marble floors and a winding staircase (I’m paraphrasing). Her family has moved a lot, and her parents keep telling her and her siblings about the house they will someday live in. Eventually she realizes this house is never going to happen.

Continue Reading »