Small Steps Forward

I’m listening to the unabridged audio of “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand.

This is what baptism should feel like.

I was in the worst living situation. I was in the land of ten thousand roaches, and infinite chiggers. And I was looking around, like a driven maniac, desperately casting about for any other living situation. Actually, not any other situation. I knew how easily one could allow desperation to take hold, then jump with fine-tuned precision and easy grace from the frying pan straight into the fire. So I was being selective, but very, very, very motivated.

And I was finding nothing! Nothing at all. I couldn’t believe it. A scant two weeks prior, there had been a dearth of apartments, roommate situations, and rooms to let everywhere, and now it was quieter than downtown Sandusky, Ohio after 9pm. Nothing in my price range, nothing in the neighborhoods I was seeking to live in… Nada.

Sigh.

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‘Sometimes people get so used to what they see in films that they end up forgetting the real story,’ says a friend, as we stand together looking out over Miami harbour. ‘Do you remember The Ten Commandments?’

Of course I do. At one point, Moses - Charlton Heston - lifts up his rod, the waters part and the children of Israel cross over.

‘In the Bible it’s different,’ says my friend. ‘There, God says to Moses: “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.” And only afterwards does he tell Moses to lift up his rod, and then the Red Sea parts.

It is only courage on the path itself that makes the path appear.’

from Stories For Parents, Children and Grandchildren by Paulo Coelho

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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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.

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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.