Friday, November 28, 2008
Bass flute
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping
I can't help it, but here we go again with the music scene thing. I'm leaving rehearsal tonight when I notice that *C* left her cello bow on the pew to be buried under all the choir folders. Folders that should not have been allowed to go there, I mean, I'm just sayin'...
I pick it up, being the gracious observer that I am, and give a shout out to its owner in the back of the church, who positively identifies her possession. My sole and solitary purpose is to unearth the delicate bow from under the folders where it lay, place it on top of the piano in the church, right there, one step away from where I am standing, and remove it from harm's way.
Now, let me side track by saying that in this moment, I recall a story from the recesses of a high school band concert where I was allowed the play the bass flute for a winter piece we played. After our concert, we all had to take our chairs and stands off the stage in the auditorium and put them back in the band room, which was through the door at the back of backstage. In wanting to be efficient, I set both my flute and the bass flute down. On the floor. Of the bandroom. Where people (60-piece band, namely) are walking back and forth. With stands. On tiered floors. Jumping, flying, wrestling, scuffling, scurrying, and all other various sorts of banging around, trying to clang and clunk their way into reassembling the band room.
Without warning and coming through that upper band room door with a stand and chair in each of my hands, the first chair flute player (we'll call her KG), starts reaming me out from down in front, in the presence of all, about having the bass flute on the floor. She is unglued and her tirade comes out in peals of maniacal outbursts that mention expense, irresponsibility, et al.; and with anger that 'might' have made someone wonder, at that moment or even now, what her investment was. Embarrassed for being dumb and pissed as hell for the censure, I move the flute ipso facto and put it in its case. Then I go home.
I was so pissed at her absolute lack of tact and ability to deal with it in a way that we could both keep our dignity, but in the end she was right. I left a multi-hundred (maybe thousand?) -dollar instrument on the floor in a moment of poor judgment to get stepped on, crushed, maybe bent. And who would have had to pay for it? It was completely reckless. But I learned my lesson.
Fast forward to the current story. This bass flute story flashes through my mind in a fleeting milisecond as I turn around with the bow in my hand. The husband of said bow owner is there, just there, in a moment, in between me and the piano. Just as momentarily, I am stopped in my tracks of realization, realizing I have his wife's bow in my hand and knowing it is an expensive piece that I really have no basis in holding.
I offer a piddling, half-instantly-intimidated explanation. I am just about ready to get worked up in my mind about this. This is the same Super Talent of the north, who is known "far and wide" for the music he has written, the instruments he has played (namely, the piano), and overall ability to wow the crowds with his alleged greatness; and who, in the matter of one and a half years, I've been able to work with alongside (and in spite of) and learn a great deal from.
I also really enjoy the change and challenge of working with him when I have the opportunity to as I always push myself more than I would on my own when I know he's right there and several steps (and years) ahead of me; but this element is lost when the territorial superiority comes creeping in and I am "reminded" that I am just an insecure peon in the life and wake of the who's who in the musical community. In other words, I let it get to me at ALL and read far much into things that no one else does and just figure that everyone else buys into his diplomatic b.s.
Yes I know.
But as I offer explanation to the husband (*Y*), I also regain (remember) my confidence, set the bow on the piano, and get a less-than-there "ok" from him. Actually it sounds more like a half-laugh at a less-than-pathetic joke.
And then I notice everyone is quiet!
Super quiet. Like if everyone is watching me; and then suddenly I'm aware that they may or may not be waiting for me. So I book it. But I'm just as instantly aware that I was half-lingering, just gathering up papers and books that other people had left laying around, and making sure I had all my own stuff; and it makes me self-consious and feeling loser-ish. I have just executed a move that I have laughed at other people for, dwelling after practice because they have nowhere to go or want to get invited to stay or whatever or however it works.
So it adds up in my head faster than a locomotive gaining speed and the half-laugh "ok" combined with people waiting for me to go, people who have been in this group, a group I fleetingly expressed an interest for once upon a time, people I've associated with, people I've mingled and associated with musically and socially who, although reasonably wait for me to leave, somehow make me feel not good enough. Ousted. And even though I wouldn't have time to be in that specific group nor would I be so unreasonable as to think I could join them so close to the concert or be of accompanying assistance when they have *Y* there, I can't help but feel inadequate or unnecessary just the same.
That being said, it's over. Situation done, gone, and past. Life goes on. I just can't help feeling unappreciated or pushed aside because this is not the first time this has happened. It makes me doubt my ability and gives me justification to be angsty, which I don't like and is cause for me to eat crow when I go back into these kinds of groups, made of up of the same people, in a small town, where there is rarely any deviation from the status quo, and where deviation is met with the same kind of reaction a bitter cashew might have; and where none of that kind of negativity has any place in who I am right now or ever. This rant has far more to do with reaction (of others) than it does my sense of self and ability. But maybe it has to do with how I read into things, too. I just know I sense things others do not, even though it gets me into trouble when I take it too far.
End of rant.
*** I'd like to comment here that it's crazy what the mind will do to itself. Especially mine. I think it's even crazier to illustrate it on paper (or virtual space, as it were) because writing in a style or a way that will help people understand makes my craziness all that more concrete, but it still doesn't generally make sense to the general whole and it's still left out there not making sense to the average person; but my point is that the main point THEN was about being in this ridiculous, absolutely heedless position of having this bow in my hand because I was trying to take care of something the other gal should have been taking care of. It was ludicrous. And as my friend, Celia, pointed out, it should have never been left there to begin with as any competent string player knows damn better than to leave their bow unattended and at risk.
11 February 2009
BORING. Boring, boring, boring.
It's hard to blog in a small town. If even one person knows you blog and has the slightest amount of interest in passing the link on, your news is spilled out and all over the table like sputtering coffee beans and the 6 o'clock news. You have to find a balance. The balance of giving a shit and not giving a shit. Alas, my people-flitting skills and enormous pride fit me in the Give Too Much Of A Shit category. Besides that and the fact that I'm a mother of two, very perceptive, not-so-little girls whose lives suffer the ramifications of the tentative, theoretical antics of "that woman" should I decide not to exercise discretion. That sucks.
There have been so many things I've wanted to specifically (and might I add humourously) (look at that--Canadian spelling) spill the beans over, rant, vent, label, whatever and I'm finding that I just can't. I feel very limited as to what I can post and regret being too candid or liberal when the whiplash comes from me not thinking beforehand. And why would I just not think beforehand? Because I'm just tired at the end of the day and what fun is sensible reading of sensible minds?
I guess this would contradict this earlier post somewhat, at least in my mind, the point of starting this TO have a place to freely digest in the form of spewage. I.e. online rantfest, diatribe dolings, epistle-like ponderings, and the like. But I just can't bring myself to spit it out, no matter how much I want to, because even when I say I don't care, I still do.
Okay. I will try again tomorrow. I'll try to blog about work or stupid people. Or both.
There have been so many things I've wanted to specifically (and might I add humourously) (look at that--Canadian spelling) spill the beans over, rant, vent, label, whatever and I'm finding that I just can't. I feel very limited as to what I can post and regret being too candid or liberal when the whiplash comes from me not thinking beforehand. And why would I just not think beforehand? Because I'm just tired at the end of the day and what fun is sensible reading of sensible minds?
I guess this would contradict this earlier post somewhat, at least in my mind, the point of starting this TO have a place to freely digest in the form of spewage. I.e. online rantfest, diatribe dolings, epistle-like ponderings, and the like. But I just can't bring myself to spit it out, no matter how much I want to, because even when I say I don't care, I still do.
Okay. I will try again tomorrow. I'll try to blog about work or stupid people. Or both.
08 February 2009
Some of my favorite, or favored, posts
Since I can't retro-date posts on here, I am uploading random oldies from my MySpace.
* * *
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Bagging each other's nuts
Category: Pets and Animals
If the 2.5 of you who read these blogs have ever noticed, I usually enter a category for most of my entries. Please note this one.
Upon completion of my last entry just minutes ago, I was comparing verbal notes of interest with my husband, when he lept into a diatribe of the stupid things kids do at school. It had become a point of staffroom discussion, of which I have been howling this entire entry.
Apparently, some of the junior high boys have taken to punching each other in the "lower extremities" for sport. Kyle has witnessed this in the halls and shared the concern, albeit unsympathetically, with his colleagues.
WHAT?
They DO this for FUN?
I guess they just haul off and go for the gold, laughing like maniacs in the process. Sometimes as hard as they can--punching, that is. I've seen pre-teen boys do stupid stuff, but this takes the cake. At the same time I was shocked and abhorred, I was wildly amused.
So, does this mean that not only is this younger generation lazy and apathetic, but they are taking themselves out, too? Right on! Darwin right at work. Confusious say "man who break ball..."
Are these the pubescent nightmares that will (I hope?) grow up to be leaders and gainfully employed in a world that my poor, unsuspecting daughters will also have to be a part of? At least my daughters will have the grace, the fortitude, and the sense of self to snort at them and walk away.
What in Sam hell does this mean? Are these dumbass boys going to be in the world I live in? What if they survive long enough TO be a part of the real world? What if I survive long enough to see them? Yikes.
The sheer irony of my last entry and this news in its momentary turn is far from lost on me.
* * *
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Bagging each other's nuts
Category: Pets and Animals
If the 2.5 of you who read these blogs have ever noticed, I usually enter a category for most of my entries. Please note this one.
Upon completion of my last entry just minutes ago, I was comparing verbal notes of interest with my husband, when he lept into a diatribe of the stupid things kids do at school. It had become a point of staffroom discussion, of which I have been howling this entire entry.
Apparently, some of the junior high boys have taken to punching each other in the "lower extremities" for sport. Kyle has witnessed this in the halls and shared the concern, albeit unsympathetically, with his colleagues.
WHAT?
They DO this for FUN?
I guess they just haul off and go for the gold, laughing like maniacs in the process. Sometimes as hard as they can--punching, that is. I've seen pre-teen boys do stupid stuff, but this takes the cake. At the same time I was shocked and abhorred, I was wildly amused.
So, does this mean that not only is this younger generation lazy and apathetic, but they are taking themselves out, too? Right on! Darwin right at work. Confusious say "man who break ball..."
Are these the pubescent nightmares that will (I hope?) grow up to be leaders and gainfully employed in a world that my poor, unsuspecting daughters will also have to be a part of? At least my daughters will have the grace, the fortitude, and the sense of self to snort at them and walk away.
What in Sam hell does this mean? Are these dumbass boys going to be in the world I live in? What if they survive long enough TO be a part of the real world? What if I survive long enough to see them? Yikes.
The sheer irony of my last entry and this news in its momentary turn is far from lost on me.
06 February 2009
I've been wanting to post something here to soften the blow of my religious-ey explosion, to act as a buffer between what you see when my page first pops up and the rest of my blog, but there are just TOO many things I could pick from and I can't even decide if I'm going to wear jeans today.
I read a blog I follow called "Sarah Says" and maybe it was because I was so tired yesterday by the time I read it or because I had had the giggles earlier in the day (and at work, no less!), but I laughed hard. She talks about lemons being hurled at her to desribe her experience with trying to find a job in her field and refers to a past entry in her rant that further explores the lemon metaphor. It's the writing style. It's the way she delivers what she has to say, her feelings about it, and the imagery comparison (analogies) all involving some sort of stoning that makes me howl out loud (hol, instead lol now?)
Of course, I've always been an imagery kind of girl. I always laugh MORE at people's reactions or the reference to a visual (sometimes unpleasant) than I do the actual joke content. Unless, of course, the joke content has a punchline that involves reaction from within the joke. Long way to go for a laugh, I know.
This has also made me appear "slow" in getting jokes. I realized this working at the crusher where the safety guy would read a joke at the end of the safety meeting (always paycheck Thursdays!) and there would be a 1.3 second delay from the other guys' laughing to mine. I've always known that I laugh more at the way a person responds to a joke than the joke itself, but being able to perceive that I laugh (and I bust out--like a BWA HA!) about a second or two behind everyone else has made me realize that I am just about a second or two behind everyone else.
And yes, sometimes it takes me a second to get a joke. If it reaches too far to get a punchline and I have to logically or numerically walk from the tag to the punch (BOH-REENG!), then I'll just look at you with a 'huh?-you-think-that-was-funny' look or I'll just laugh politely. And then I'll laugh because you'll look at me like I'm stupid--and THAT is funny. The facial expression.
But this is just how I am. Hard-wired to respond this way to jokes and I am absolutely, positively, undoubtedly sure I get this from my aunties. Well, ok, and my mom, too. Duh. But it makes my world that much richer because not many people I know react that way and so it makes the chance of mass production for my kind of laugh far lower and I'm left laughing alone or at least with you for completely different reasons. And you'll still think I'm laughing about the joke...
I read a blog I follow called "Sarah Says" and maybe it was because I was so tired yesterday by the time I read it or because I had had the giggles earlier in the day (and at work, no less!), but I laughed hard. She talks about lemons being hurled at her to desribe her experience with trying to find a job in her field and refers to a past entry in her rant that further explores the lemon metaphor. It's the writing style. It's the way she delivers what she has to say, her feelings about it, and the imagery comparison (analogies) all involving some sort of stoning that makes me howl out loud (hol, instead lol now?)
Of course, I've always been an imagery kind of girl. I always laugh MORE at people's reactions or the reference to a visual (sometimes unpleasant) than I do the actual joke content. Unless, of course, the joke content has a punchline that involves reaction from within the joke. Long way to go for a laugh, I know.
This has also made me appear "slow" in getting jokes. I realized this working at the crusher where the safety guy would read a joke at the end of the safety meeting (always paycheck Thursdays!) and there would be a 1.3 second delay from the other guys' laughing to mine. I've always known that I laugh more at the way a person responds to a joke than the joke itself, but being able to perceive that I laugh (and I bust out--like a BWA HA!) about a second or two behind everyone else has made me realize that I am just about a second or two behind everyone else.
And yes, sometimes it takes me a second to get a joke. If it reaches too far to get a punchline and I have to logically or numerically walk from the tag to the punch (BOH-REENG!), then I'll just look at you with a 'huh?-you-think-that-was-funny' look or I'll just laugh politely. And then I'll laugh because you'll look at me like I'm stupid--and THAT is funny. The facial expression.
But this is just how I am. Hard-wired to respond this way to jokes and I am absolutely, positively, undoubtedly sure I get this from my aunties. Well, ok, and my mom, too. Duh. But it makes my world that much richer because not many people I know react that way and so it makes the chance of mass production for my kind of laugh far lower and I'm left laughing alone or at least with you for completely different reasons. And you'll still think I'm laughing about the joke...
04 February 2009
Heavy
Okay. I that's it. I believe in God. Okay? I shy away from this overt statement for fear of being perceived as a bumple-thumping scripture monger, especially on the ground that I believe in Him very strongly, believe in miracles, believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and our indescribably generous savior, and that his mother was (is) holy and immaculate. With EVERY fiber of my being. But you know what? Most times, as in my whole inner core with or without words, testimony, and the like, I can truly say I don't care how I might be perceived. It just such a personal thing to be modest about HOW MUCH I believe in Him because the relationship I have with Him feels private and protected. It's not FOR anyone else and it is even less for show or for demonstration via the pulpit. It is SO incredibly personal, it's hard to fathom. Hard to explain. It's so incredibly personal to share these things and show belief such as in capitalizing the "h" when using what I think is a holy pronoun or reciting His presence in my life when the world is FULL--and I know it is full--of cynics, but how on earth did I get from there to here; and how is that we have moved so far away from God as a people and a race?
My own journey is not open for public spectacle, and I say this, yet I see no wisdom in keeping it all to myself. I see the wisdom in sharing what I've been through so as to be a comfort to others, offer them words of resolve, of understanding, of empathy, and most of all love. But I don't feel like spattering it all over everything because people get sick of that, too, and it that's not helpful in the least.
So then, what of this compounded need to get this out? Well, for starters, I've been "quiet" and "observant" for far too long. In trying to tip toe around others' sensitivities and not be too bible-thumpey (which I could never be because I don't know enough scripture TO quote and have not read the bible cover to cover), I've almost become complacent for a red-blooded, impassioned hot-head like myself. It's just not me. (Besides the fact that I don't want to be judged by God as having fallen asleep at the wheel.)
Especially when it comes to the point of standing up for someone or something. If there is one thing in this life I loathe, or at least have heavy, temperamental disdain for, is idle hands, lukewarm attitudes, standing idly by in the face of injustice or just plain spinelessness. And for me to make all these concessions about what I will say or not say in public or to others to avoid embarrassment (embarrassment of possibly contradicting myself more than in people's opinions) just makes me a candidate for hypocracy. The whole thing is kind of (quite a bit of) crazy. I mean, there IS ... balance to be had. I'm not going to go screaming about Mohammed at the top of Sipple Hill tomorrow because there's just no grace in that, nor am I the type to stand on any soap box, but I think if I said something here, where I air just about every other thought I have, then it might complete the circle of rambling.
So standing up for what? Standing up for what I believe. Standing up for the qualities and lessons and morals Jesus taught us to live by on earth. I am Catholic, but I don't buy into everything the Catholic church sells. I also try very hard to put what is doled out into perspective. I believe that there are enormous possibilities that we can't even imagine as to what really transpired before, during, and after the Bible was written, but I don't believe that the stories in the Bible were "just" stories. I believe EVERYTHING happens for a reason, especially when we can't understand it; and even if that much is by human error, it is, has been, or was allowed to transpire by God himself because he gives us free will. I believe that we make up or shun the things that are difficult to believe because it's easier to laugh than to try to believe in something that has no concrete, human-registered value. I believe that God DID send his most precious son down here to earth, that his name was Jesus, that he was born in ways too miraculous to understand, to live life just like us--or the "us" of the times, those times, back then, that culture--and suffer a most excruciating death so that we could never say to Him "you don't understand". I believe that he did come back to life, did raise up, did go to Heaven, and now lives among us as an invisible soldier, friend, confidante, brother, and intercessor who is trying to get us all up to heaven; and as someone who TOTALLY understands.
I believe Jesus wants us to live through him and him through us (you know, like when you tell a friend "I'll live vicariously through you"), both in the heavenly and afterlife sense, but also in the sense of now; but so that we could have a piece of Heaven because he suffered the ultimate price, he suffered more than we could ever know, more than we could ever endure. He can tell us in our hearts and in those moments of quiet peace that He knows and understands our woes and burdens and triumphs and reliefs; and that will make us want to listen. Share our pain, our joy, our sorrows, or delights. I believe that His love is so thorough and so pure that we cannot possibly fathom its endurance. I believe science and religion are intrinsically connected, even though they cycle around each other in this duel for the title of dominant force because science is the discovery and explanation of miracles, given to humanity as gift; and religion (or spirituality) is the cause to believe. We need desperately to understand that cockiness on either side of the debate is still cockiness and it's getting us nowhere. In that instance, we are still like kids, locking horns on the playground because one thinks they're better than the other. A reponsible person might say, "it's not LIKE that" to them after pulling them apart and why? Because adults generally understand that in the bigger picture, there is give and take, compromise, resolution and balance. But right now, no one is saying anything. And for those that are, there tends to be a top-heavy imbalance of self-righteous posers blabbing at the top of the stack.
Maybe I am one of them, but I hope not. The point is there is a part of me telling me I'm not saying enough. It's not a guilty feeling, it's a half-impatient feeling, as though I were asking myself 'what's taking you so long?' I also fight the feelings I have of others when I read or hear the overused "god" word in their vocabulary. The sad reality is that the "G" word has been overused and used in a near-abusive way, to the point that it's almost gimick or trendy, which is awful. We need to take a moment and shed all the crap, the toys, the gadgets, the electronics, the words, the talking and purge the air, purge our personal environments, just for a second and breathe the simplicity.
My own journey is not open for public spectacle, and I say this, yet I see no wisdom in keeping it all to myself. I see the wisdom in sharing what I've been through so as to be a comfort to others, offer them words of resolve, of understanding, of empathy, and most of all love. But I don't feel like spattering it all over everything because people get sick of that, too, and it that's not helpful in the least.
So then, what of this compounded need to get this out? Well, for starters, I've been "quiet" and "observant" for far too long. In trying to tip toe around others' sensitivities and not be too bible-thumpey (which I could never be because I don't know enough scripture TO quote and have not read the bible cover to cover), I've almost become complacent for a red-blooded, impassioned hot-head like myself. It's just not me. (Besides the fact that I don't want to be judged by God as having fallen asleep at the wheel.)
Especially when it comes to the point of standing up for someone or something. If there is one thing in this life I loathe, or at least have heavy, temperamental disdain for, is idle hands, lukewarm attitudes, standing idly by in the face of injustice or just plain spinelessness. And for me to make all these concessions about what I will say or not say in public or to others to avoid embarrassment (embarrassment of possibly contradicting myself more than in people's opinions) just makes me a candidate for hypocracy. The whole thing is kind of (quite a bit of) crazy. I mean, there IS ... balance to be had. I'm not going to go screaming about Mohammed at the top of Sipple Hill tomorrow because there's just no grace in that, nor am I the type to stand on any soap box, but I think if I said something here, where I air just about every other thought I have, then it might complete the circle of rambling.
So standing up for what? Standing up for what I believe. Standing up for the qualities and lessons and morals Jesus taught us to live by on earth. I am Catholic, but I don't buy into everything the Catholic church sells. I also try very hard to put what is doled out into perspective. I believe that there are enormous possibilities that we can't even imagine as to what really transpired before, during, and after the Bible was written, but I don't believe that the stories in the Bible were "just" stories. I believe EVERYTHING happens for a reason, especially when we can't understand it; and even if that much is by human error, it is, has been, or was allowed to transpire by God himself because he gives us free will. I believe that we make up or shun the things that are difficult to believe because it's easier to laugh than to try to believe in something that has no concrete, human-registered value. I believe that God DID send his most precious son down here to earth, that his name was Jesus, that he was born in ways too miraculous to understand, to live life just like us--or the "us" of the times, those times, back then, that culture--and suffer a most excruciating death so that we could never say to Him "you don't understand". I believe that he did come back to life, did raise up, did go to Heaven, and now lives among us as an invisible soldier, friend, confidante, brother, and intercessor who is trying to get us all up to heaven; and as someone who TOTALLY understands.
I believe Jesus wants us to live through him and him through us (you know, like when you tell a friend "I'll live vicariously through you"), both in the heavenly and afterlife sense, but also in the sense of now; but so that we could have a piece of Heaven because he suffered the ultimate price, he suffered more than we could ever know, more than we could ever endure. He can tell us in our hearts and in those moments of quiet peace that He knows and understands our woes and burdens and triumphs and reliefs; and that will make us want to listen. Share our pain, our joy, our sorrows, or delights. I believe that His love is so thorough and so pure that we cannot possibly fathom its endurance. I believe science and religion are intrinsically connected, even though they cycle around each other in this duel for the title of dominant force because science is the discovery and explanation of miracles, given to humanity as gift; and religion (or spirituality) is the cause to believe. We need desperately to understand that cockiness on either side of the debate is still cockiness and it's getting us nowhere. In that instance, we are still like kids, locking horns on the playground because one thinks they're better than the other. A reponsible person might say, "it's not LIKE that" to them after pulling them apart and why? Because adults generally understand that in the bigger picture, there is give and take, compromise, resolution and balance. But right now, no one is saying anything. And for those that are, there tends to be a top-heavy imbalance of self-righteous posers blabbing at the top of the stack.
Maybe I am one of them, but I hope not. The point is there is a part of me telling me I'm not saying enough. It's not a guilty feeling, it's a half-impatient feeling, as though I were asking myself 'what's taking you so long?' I also fight the feelings I have of others when I read or hear the overused "god" word in their vocabulary. The sad reality is that the "G" word has been overused and used in a near-abusive way, to the point that it's almost gimick or trendy, which is awful. We need to take a moment and shed all the crap, the toys, the gadgets, the electronics, the words, the talking and purge the air, purge our personal environments, just for a second and breathe the simplicity.
02 February 2009
Starry winter nights
It's exactly what it implies.
There is something quietly magical and mysterious about the still, dark, winter night sky. It's just romantic, both in metaphor and in reality, but it's also nearly impossible to grasp. It seems always just out of reach and overwhelming in concept and in entirety, respectively. It makes me feel in full scope how wrong the world is or how wrong I am or just how inferior my human attempts at living life right are. In looking for a photo to go with this entry, I realized that the aurora borealis gives exactly the same kind of impressed emotion. That kind of surpressed feeling that makes you want to explode just to get out of your body, which makes you feel so momentarily trapped. It never lasts and it's so intriguing but it also so humbling that I just don't know what to do with it and then hustle in the house with girls as I realize I'm getting cold and have a handful of something (bags, stacks of books, leftovers from supper at Darlene's.) I'm really not on drugs. I've just never tried to explain this before.
It's what makes me the crazy, Latina, life-absorbing, miracle-observing chick that I am. But I find it no coincidence (or perhaps CrAzY coincidence altogether!) that the aurora, the stars, the sky--all of it--work together to woo me in this crazy, cold north living with a man who I wonder may have been in a dream I had before I even knew him. Yes, I know. That might be going too far...
But it begs the question: what if?
This dream is so old it's hard to believe I still think about it. Several years ago (thirteen or fourteen), I had a dream one night where the only details I remember are that it was in the middle of winter, the middle of the night, I was in a cabin that resembled the mobile home I used to live in, and several girls wandering around, all in some form of a white dress. (Pajamas? Smocks? Hard to say.) They were all just walking around, doing aimless tasks and I remembered wondering (a little self-righteously) what in the hell they were doing and what for.
Next I remember being across the living room and standing in front of the window. I remember looking out into the bitterly cold night, I remember wondering how cold it was, not wanting to find out, and I remember the sparkling, expansive, untouched blanket of snow on the field that stretched past the horizon. It was like I knew the air outside was unbearable and Arctic-like (being a girl from Wyoming), but was still standing super cozy and warm inside. In the meantime, I took in the dark, black-purple sky, riddled with stars and just stared, half breathless, into the midnight sky.
But I also remember that just as momentarily as I perceived cold, warmth, and wonderment, I perceived absolute desolation because there was nowhere to go and no way to get out. I wouldn't have known which direction to go and no one seemed interested in getting away anyway, seeing something new, experiencing life past this two-dimensional way of living. It was desperately lacking.
That's not all. If you've ever had to transition from experiencing pain to accepting it, you'll understand this next part. I realized how separated we were from other people and it felt instantly crushing. I actually felt physical pain. Somehow this translated into knowing I would never find love and the whole entire realization--of being cut off from the world and not getting the chance to experience true love (cheese alert!! cheese alert!!)--just killed me. I had to take this enormous sadness, accept it, and somehow turn it around.
The next thing I remember was holding the front door open for someone who, I guess, had come by in passing. It was a guy, a man, a tall, broad man, who barely fit the door frame and he was covered in furs all the way up to his eyes, eyes I couldn't see, but somehow captivated me through this jolt of electric energy that I couldn't perceive. Energy and connection that was beyond first or second impression, and I was amazed, incredulous, relieved, and inexplicably light-hearted at the thought of his presence. Yet he was right there in front of me and there was something about him, something about the way we connected, that I knew he was meant for me and I was meant for him. I woke up sad to leave the dream but with a smile for a sense of purpose.
It's so ooey-gooey (and it's SO me), but the overall purpose of the dream seemed bigger than me and all my gooey-eyed perceptions of romance or even life.
The point is, it stuck with me for a good long while and then it went away. After graduation and a few failed experiences, life went on and I got a real good dose of reality as I searched for jobs 7 months pregnant and moved on with homework, bottles, diapers, daycare, and concert rehearsals. I totally forgot about it.
Enter Kyle. And the world around me changed again. The way our relationship unfolded and the way he treated me made feel just like I did in that dream (the good part, that is.) Then that's when I remembered the dream. All the comparisons since then of my life with him always involve some kind of recollection of that dream. It makes me wonder--it has always made me wonder--if maybe there was purpose to that dream, purpose beyond my own agenda, divine intervention perhaps or if it was just that I wanted to relish in the coincidence so much that I subconsiously made it so.
I highly doubt the latter, no matter what the cynics believe. I don't need that dream to know what the beautiful inscription of Kyle in my life means or how blessed I am to have him in my life. I simply know that both the reality of Kyle in my life and the dream of someone very like him are connected. The comparisons will be left to a later entry.
There is something quietly magical and mysterious about the still, dark, winter night sky. It's just romantic, both in metaphor and in reality, but it's also nearly impossible to grasp. It seems always just out of reach and overwhelming in concept and in entirety, respectively. It makes me feel in full scope how wrong the world is or how wrong I am or just how inferior my human attempts at living life right are. In looking for a photo to go with this entry, I realized that the aurora borealis gives exactly the same kind of impressed emotion. That kind of surpressed feeling that makes you want to explode just to get out of your body, which makes you feel so momentarily trapped. It never lasts and it's so intriguing but it also so humbling that I just don't know what to do with it and then hustle in the house with girls as I realize I'm getting cold and have a handful of something (bags, stacks of books, leftovers from supper at Darlene's.) I'm really not on drugs. I've just never tried to explain this before.
It's what makes me the crazy, Latina, life-absorbing, miracle-observing chick that I am. But I find it no coincidence (or perhaps CrAzY coincidence altogether!) that the aurora, the stars, the sky--all of it--work together to woo me in this crazy, cold north living with a man who I wonder may have been in a dream I had before I even knew him. Yes, I know. That might be going too far...
But it begs the question: what if?
This dream is so old it's hard to believe I still think about it. Several years ago (thirteen or fourteen), I had a dream one night where the only details I remember are that it was in the middle of winter, the middle of the night, I was in a cabin that resembled the mobile home I used to live in, and several girls wandering around, all in some form of a white dress. (Pajamas? Smocks? Hard to say.) They were all just walking around, doing aimless tasks and I remembered wondering (a little self-righteously) what in the hell they were doing and what for.
Next I remember being across the living room and standing in front of the window. I remember looking out into the bitterly cold night, I remember wondering how cold it was, not wanting to find out, and I remember the sparkling, expansive, untouched blanket of snow on the field that stretched past the horizon. It was like I knew the air outside was unbearable and Arctic-like (being a girl from Wyoming), but was still standing super cozy and warm inside. In the meantime, I took in the dark, black-purple sky, riddled with stars and just stared, half breathless, into the midnight sky.
But I also remember that just as momentarily as I perceived cold, warmth, and wonderment, I perceived absolute desolation because there was nowhere to go and no way to get out. I wouldn't have known which direction to go and no one seemed interested in getting away anyway, seeing something new, experiencing life past this two-dimensional way of living. It was desperately lacking.
That's not all. If you've ever had to transition from experiencing pain to accepting it, you'll understand this next part. I realized how separated we were from other people and it felt instantly crushing. I actually felt physical pain. Somehow this translated into knowing I would never find love and the whole entire realization--of being cut off from the world and not getting the chance to experience true love (cheese alert!! cheese alert!!)--just killed me. I had to take this enormous sadness, accept it, and somehow turn it around.
The next thing I remember was holding the front door open for someone who, I guess, had come by in passing. It was a guy, a man, a tall, broad man, who barely fit the door frame and he was covered in furs all the way up to his eyes, eyes I couldn't see, but somehow captivated me through this jolt of electric energy that I couldn't perceive. Energy and connection that was beyond first or second impression, and I was amazed, incredulous, relieved, and inexplicably light-hearted at the thought of his presence. Yet he was right there in front of me and there was something about him, something about the way we connected, that I knew he was meant for me and I was meant for him. I woke up sad to leave the dream but with a smile for a sense of purpose.
It's so ooey-gooey (and it's SO me), but the overall purpose of the dream seemed bigger than me and all my gooey-eyed perceptions of romance or even life.
The point is, it stuck with me for a good long while and then it went away. After graduation and a few failed experiences, life went on and I got a real good dose of reality as I searched for jobs 7 months pregnant and moved on with homework, bottles, diapers, daycare, and concert rehearsals. I totally forgot about it.
Enter Kyle. And the world around me changed again. The way our relationship unfolded and the way he treated me made feel just like I did in that dream (the good part, that is.) Then that's when I remembered the dream. All the comparisons since then of my life with him always involve some kind of recollection of that dream. It makes me wonder--it has always made me wonder--if maybe there was purpose to that dream, purpose beyond my own agenda, divine intervention perhaps or if it was just that I wanted to relish in the coincidence so much that I subconsiously made it so.
I highly doubt the latter, no matter what the cynics believe. I don't need that dream to know what the beautiful inscription of Kyle in my life means or how blessed I am to have him in my life. I simply know that both the reality of Kyle in my life and the dream of someone very like him are connected. The comparisons will be left to a later entry.
The phone really isn't that bad
I just read an old entry and, while I don't have time to write much here and now, I feel compelled to rectify certain emotions.
1. The phone isn't that bad. I have had, shall we say "hang ups" about getting on the phone, anxieties over dialing (yes, I am one of those), and overall negative experiences with others on the phone in my previous lives, but I am starting to learn how to use it, essentially, in a way that fits my personality and my life. All it took was a little getting used to and some growing up.
2. I was PMS-ing. The motherload of all excuses.
1. The phone isn't that bad. I have had, shall we say "hang ups" about getting on the phone, anxieties over dialing (yes, I am one of those), and overall negative experiences with others on the phone in my previous lives, but I am starting to learn how to use it, essentially, in a way that fits my personality and my life. All it took was a little getting used to and some growing up.
2. I was PMS-ing. The motherload of all excuses.
01 February 2009
Back to the G.I. Joes, an addition to Jan 31 entry
I say I was a tomboy by force. No one ever put a Lego gun to my head and told me to be, but being the only girl with two brothers, it only stood to reason that if I wanted to have someone to play with, I would have to play on their terms, with their rules, and their games. But I was still a girly-girl. Just ask my dad.
Did I mention they were younger? This had no bargaining value, no leverage. Whatsoever.
Usually Erik made the rules and Michael and I followed, but even before Michael was old enough to hang outside with us unattended, Erik was doing his own thing. This was not always the case, I admit, because there were many time I didn't want to get dirty or be bothered or play with Tonka trucks or Tinker Toys; OR because he was taking direction from his older sister. However, I do recall playing with G.I. Joes, Guns, hide and seek, MacGuyver, Hunter, and various other action-packed adventures because he refused to play Barbies, My Little Ponies, dress-up, and for the most part, House.
Lush sensuality
1. I was born in Laramie, Wyoming, USA and was primarily raised in Gillette, Wyoming where we moved when I was little. Both are in the east side of the state, Laramie in the south corner, Gillette in the north. I've never been to Yellowstone National Park.
2. I don't really have a favorite color because I don't ever want to have a house or closet full of purple, which would be the color of choice. But then I wouldn't want a house or closet full of red, either, or chocolate brown, black, blue, green, which are all really great colors,too, that are rich and attractive and that I like just as much. Too many options to have too much of one thing and variety is the spice of life. It's not a standard rule, but it does stem from my beliefs in balance.
3. I was a single mom for a year--only a year--but I was 18 and will never forget it because I didn't know a thing about anything and it came before everything else, including all the other things I would ever become in my life. I played single mom again when Kyle was sick with cancer for 6 months and again later when he took a year off of teaching and had to work out of town. So even though my life is great now, it wasn't always so.
4. I was in a horrible accident with my then-fiance (Kyle) and my then-year-old (Aurora) where I fell asleep at the wheel trying to drive overnight back home, hit a reflector pole, overcorrected one too many times, and sent us rolling into the median of the highway. According to the police report, I hit the reflector pole, swerved, over-corrected twice, and rolled the vehicle a number of times before coming to a stop on the roof. Aurora was ejected out the back, but miraculously--MIRACULOUSLY--escaped with a bruise on her jaw and a bruise on her collar bone. She was released from the hospital within hours. Kyle was beat up horribly, with pulled back muscles, ridiculously blood-shot and blackened eyes. He was released in a few hours. I was in ICU for three days with concussion. My dad said I looked like an alien. I don't remember ANY of it. Did I mention I was driving a Geo Tracker?
5. The guilt from the afore-mentioned accident on ALL sides of realization ate at me for a very long time. It took a long, long time to "sober" up, get my brain back, start remembering things, and I was a very different person after that. Very combative. Not myself.
6. I have a big freckle on my big toe. It's been there since birth.
7. I don't grow my nails out. I am always clipping them because I hate the feeling of click-click on piano/keyboard keys, the scratching when they connect with a surface, and when they start tearing at the tips.
8. I love to laugh. I love stupid comedy, dry humour, jokes that involve reaction and I will laugh primarily at reactions that have less to do with the joke content than people's faces.
9. I use tanning beds.
10. I think confession is good for the soul.
11. I talk too much and too fast.
12. I can operate heavy equipment, operated a full-scale gravel crusher, and shovel like a b****.
13. I can drive a standard transmission.
14. I rebuilt my bathroom downstairs from scratch after we had water in the subfloor and had to gut it out. I'd like to say I did it all myself, but a friend with more knowledge than me helped.
15. I really, really, really like my computer. I don't go to bed without spending WAY more time on it than I should.
16. I know how to play bassoon and used to be pretty good at it.
17. I like to belt out the tunes if there is noise that can kind of hide it and I stop when the noise stops. I used to sing full force when I worked at the crusher because nobody could hear me over the generator, the conveyor belts, the motors, the noise, and overall crunching and crushing of boulders. But sometimes I like to hear my voice in resonating in a building. Like the bathroom or the restauarant I work at that has a vaulted ceiling or big churches.
18. I put a rock through a picture window the summer after 8th grade because I befriended a girl who stole cars. The police came driving around and we somehow managed to avoid getting caught by laying in a field of grass taller than us for three hours.
19. I'm a Gemini.
20. I danced the Jarabe Tapatio with my dad when I was in high school for the Cinco de Mayo night the school put on. It was the unofficial official version of the regional dance of Jalisco, the state where he is from. It is, more or less, the Mexican Hat Dance. I still have the dress. I still hope to dance it again some day.
21. I speak Spanish. My dad is Mexican. I have Mexican family that I can talk to, but don't often.
22. My mom is Norwegian. She does not speak Norwegian. Nor do I.
23. I was in Girl Scouts from grade 1 to grade 8. It's really, REALLY not cool to be a Girl Scout in junior high.
24. I got out of an algebra test in college to get married. I wore my best friend's clothes and tied a bow in my hair. In 1999.
25. My computer is about to die. So I'm posting this and logging off.
31 January 2009
Pink foam curlers and G.I. Joes
I had foam curlers that you had to clasp on one end after rolling wet hair onto it. (You, as in the general you, not the boy 'you' because boys don't curl their hair, so I guess I mean the general GIRL 'you', in which case I should have just wrote 'girls', instead of 'you', but I am not wanting to offend boys who DO curl their hair, because maybe, I don't know, there are a few of those out there, and there is such a high likelihood that they would read this.)
Back to the foam, here. They were pink. The cylindrical foam that you wrapped the hair around and the plastic clasp that framed the foam and connected at the one end were pink. I put a ton (okay, well maybe not a TON) of them in my hair one afternoon in the hopes that I could put a luscious and luxurious body of curls into my otherwise normally straight (bland, blah, brown) hair. I had entire afternoon to waste. I had time to let my hair dry.
In the meantime and without a hair dryer (without? or absent-minded enough to not think of using one? hmmm...) I started to lip sync with the radio. Joan Jett came on and I poured my ever-lovin', rockin' heart out into her lyrics. "I hate myself for lovin' youuuuu!...." On the bed, crouching down, hopping off, microphone (brush) in hand. Performing to a huge, sold-out crowd (ten or fifteen stuffed animals) on a well-lit stage (pastel-colored bed.) I caught a glimpse of myself in the tiny vanity on my desk coming down on a beat, mid-angst-cringe. I was absolutely horrified to see the pink curlers flopping against my angry face, sickly pale and splattered with freckles and brown eyes that I couldn't get away from.
I stopped. Party over. Total rocker kill.
But it passed. I rocked it out to the end, I took my curlers out, and looked something more like this.
Back to the foam, here. They were pink. The cylindrical foam that you wrapped the hair around and the plastic clasp that framed the foam and connected at the one end were pink. I put a ton (okay, well maybe not a TON) of them in my hair one afternoon in the hopes that I could put a luscious and luxurious body of curls into my otherwise normally straight (bland, blah, brown) hair. I had entire afternoon to waste. I had time to let my hair dry.
In the meantime and without a hair dryer (without? or absent-minded enough to not think of using one? hmmm...) I started to lip sync with the radio. Joan Jett came on and I poured my ever-lovin', rockin' heart out into her lyrics. "I hate myself for lovin' youuuuu!...." On the bed, crouching down, hopping off, microphone (brush) in hand. Performing to a huge, sold-out crowd (ten or fifteen stuffed animals) on a well-lit stage (pastel-colored bed.) I caught a glimpse of myself in the tiny vanity on my desk coming down on a beat, mid-angst-cringe. I was absolutely horrified to see the pink curlers flopping against my angry face, sickly pale and splattered with freckles and brown eyes that I couldn't get away from.
I stopped. Party over. Total rocker kill.
But it passed. I rocked it out to the end, I took my curlers out, and looked something more like this.
30 January 2009
Batman Returns: my first date
Once upon a time, there lived a girl...
So once when I was 13, I had a real date. My first, out-of-the house, to-the-movies date. It was Batman Returns. Not real romantic by all wooing standards, but I didn't care. I could tell someone I "went on a date."
There was a catch, though. His mom had to go with us.
It was not MY idea of a good date, even though I sympathized with both mothers, but I guess neither my date or I had a lot of say in the matter since we needed her to get us to the movie. In the end, there was no win-win because she had to watch all the penguin blood come out of Danny Devito's mouth in the final scenes of the graphic novel-come-animation.
We never went on another date, but I'd look for every reason to call him on the phone or meet up with him when our parents met for boy scout meetings. I didn't really like him ALL that much. He was a year older, kind of dorky but kind of cute, and went to a different school. I was just, well, boy crazy. He ended up losing interest and I ended up getting sick of his "would you rather die being hanged or sliding down a razor and into a bucket of iodine" level of conversations. They were topics better left to all his dorky friends.
Let me back up a bit by explaining that I met this kid getting ready for the annual Boy Scout Day Camp that involved cartloads of projects: handyman, craftyman, applied sciences, and the like. Three days worth of activities that would keep every age and every level of boys' hands and mind busy, but that also need prepping. This is where CG comes in. CG had a Dremel with which he was carving notches out of wood pieces that would become tie slides. I, as the daughter of two active Cub Scout leader parents, did the dutiful thing by coming into all the pre-planning meetings and helped. So I picked up a Dremel, started carving notches, and struck up a conversation. This has always been my style.
Except I missed after about the hundredth piece of wood and ended up Dremeling off some skin. I washed it off, pressed a towel to the wound, and retired from notch-making. A few weeks later, my proactive ways produced what is now infamously known (only in my mind) as the Batman date.
So once when I was 13, I had a real date. My first, out-of-the house, to-the-movies date. It was Batman Returns. Not real romantic by all wooing standards, but I didn't care. I could tell someone I "went on a date."
There was a catch, though. His mom had to go with us.
It was not MY idea of a good date, even though I sympathized with both mothers, but I guess neither my date or I had a lot of say in the matter since we needed her to get us to the movie. In the end, there was no win-win because she had to watch all the penguin blood come out of Danny Devito's mouth in the final scenes of the graphic novel-come-animation.
We never went on another date, but I'd look for every reason to call him on the phone or meet up with him when our parents met for boy scout meetings. I didn't really like him ALL that much. He was a year older, kind of dorky but kind of cute, and went to a different school. I was just, well, boy crazy. He ended up losing interest and I ended up getting sick of his "would you rather die being hanged or sliding down a razor and into a bucket of iodine" level of conversations. They were topics better left to all his dorky friends.
Let me back up a bit by explaining that I met this kid getting ready for the annual Boy Scout Day Camp that involved cartloads of projects: handyman, craftyman, applied sciences, and the like. Three days worth of activities that would keep every age and every level of boys' hands and mind busy, but that also need prepping. This is where CG comes in. CG had a Dremel with which he was carving notches out of wood pieces that would become tie slides. I, as the daughter of two active Cub Scout leader parents, did the dutiful thing by coming into all the pre-planning meetings and helped. So I picked up a Dremel, started carving notches, and struck up a conversation. This has always been my style.
Except I missed after about the hundredth piece of wood and ended up Dremeling off some skin. I washed it off, pressed a towel to the wound, and retired from notch-making. A few weeks later, my proactive ways produced what is now infamously known (only in my mind) as the Batman date.
28 January 2009
These people just don't get it.
These people are just too nice!! What the hell? WHY... am I not allowed to be grumpy or pissy or feisty or WHATEVER without being BUGGED about it? Why I am even bugged about being "bugged"? Especially when they are, after all, JUST trying to be nice and concerned...?
Tired perhaps. I just "got word" (i.e. looked at the schedule) that I'll be doing the closing shift for a majority of the month of February and I'm suprised to find how NOT happy I am about this. I really thought I was more flexible. It surprises me that I cannot just be okay with this. I will just have to get over it, wrap my little head around it, but not without kicking my feet and pitching just a teeny, TINY little fit about it.
I mean, I knew when I applied (signed on, agree to employment, etc.) that I wanted to be flexible. I am fortunate in my life that, even though I have kids, I also have a husband who maintains the same hours as my kids and can be with them when I have to work something other than a day shift.
But I DID say I preferred days; that I would be willing to do the odd weekend or evening shift, but that I preferred days. I've been working mostly days, my kids need me to be a part of their lives, and now I'm stuck working the closing shift with all the school-aged kids.
Which I don't like. They like me, and I don't know why, and for the most part, I get along with them, but they're just not old enough/matured enough to appreciate/identify/apply the kind of work ethic that comes from needing the job, as opposed to wanting extra cash.
But now, for the month of February, the majority of my shifts are evening and closing shifts and I just can't get over how unhappy I am about this; and even though it is only, for all intense purposes only one month, and the month the owners need and deserve the vacation they are going on, AND the shortest month of the year, I still miss all this time with my girls. I stagnate somewhat in their lives. I lose touch (a bit) with what's going on. I just feel like that's unacceptable.
Plus, I don't get home until late, which I also hate, because there's no time with girls, no time with Kyle, and I already have trouble with mornings as it is. I hate starting the day late, and working late is the super-epitome of that. I just hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It's a change. And I have this whole thing with change, being totally aware of it, wanting to be accepting of it and generally taking change up the tail pipe wherever it creeps in; but where I'm starting to find that my hellbent desire to protect the good of my family meets change with an ugly scowl.
And especially with this??? Why do I-I-I have to be the one that gets the shaft? The short end of the stick? The one stiffed with the lower-end shift? Why is it that I am always getting the shit end of the stick because "you can handle it, Amy"? Just because I can and am capable doesn't mean I want to. It doesn't even make it "all better" any more. It's a horseshit excuse to relegate the small girl, the easy-going girl, the will-do-anything girl to the gallows. And it's horseshit.
I'm just getting so angry. Maybe it's best to wrap this up right here.
Tired perhaps. I just "got word" (i.e. looked at the schedule) that I'll be doing the closing shift for a majority of the month of February and I'm suprised to find how NOT happy I am about this. I really thought I was more flexible. It surprises me that I cannot just be okay with this. I will just have to get over it, wrap my little head around it, but not without kicking my feet and pitching just a teeny, TINY little fit about it.
I mean, I knew when I applied (signed on, agree to employment, etc.) that I wanted to be flexible. I am fortunate in my life that, even though I have kids, I also have a husband who maintains the same hours as my kids and can be with them when I have to work something other than a day shift.
But I DID say I preferred days; that I would be willing to do the odd weekend or evening shift, but that I preferred days. I've been working mostly days, my kids need me to be a part of their lives, and now I'm stuck working the closing shift with all the school-aged kids.
Which I don't like. They like me, and I don't know why, and for the most part, I get along with them, but they're just not old enough/matured enough to appreciate/identify/apply the kind of work ethic that comes from needing the job, as opposed to wanting extra cash.
But now, for the month of February, the majority of my shifts are evening and closing shifts and I just can't get over how unhappy I am about this; and even though it is only, for all intense purposes only one month, and the month the owners need and deserve the vacation they are going on, AND the shortest month of the year, I still miss all this time with my girls. I stagnate somewhat in their lives. I lose touch (a bit) with what's going on. I just feel like that's unacceptable.
Plus, I don't get home until late, which I also hate, because there's no time with girls, no time with Kyle, and I already have trouble with mornings as it is. I hate starting the day late, and working late is the super-epitome of that. I just hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It's a change. And I have this whole thing with change, being totally aware of it, wanting to be accepting of it and generally taking change up the tail pipe wherever it creeps in; but where I'm starting to find that my hellbent desire to protect the good of my family meets change with an ugly scowl.
And especially with this??? Why do I-I-I have to be the one that gets the shaft? The short end of the stick? The one stiffed with the lower-end shift? Why is it that I am always getting the shit end of the stick because "you can handle it, Amy"? Just because I can and am capable doesn't mean I want to. It doesn't even make it "all better" any more. It's a horseshit excuse to relegate the small girl, the easy-going girl, the will-do-anything girl to the gallows. And it's horseshit.
I'm just getting so angry. Maybe it's best to wrap this up right here.
20 January 2009
Hurling M & M's
I'm really not that into... ANYTHING. (Right now.)
Everything is pissing me off! And why is that? I haven't got a hot clue in hell reason for why. Unless, that is, of course, you consider Post Menstrual Syndrome, which doesn't even exist yet (so far as the medical community has registered, anyway) and that grinding M & M's fiercely between your teeth means SOMETHING.
Noise pollution/overload? The fan from the downstairs bathroom is driving me to a fist-slamming mode of frustration because it is one of about a trillion other things in this house that works like it was from the fifties. Oh wait, it WAS from the fifties. Okay, maybe not the actual fan assembly. More like the 80's and the house was built in the fifties. But whatever. The main problem is: it's loud and it reminds me of all the other little projects that are forced into a semi-existing priority list between my husband, me, and the house. The humming carries upstairs, vibrating the living room floor, and creating this overall drumming underlay of sound that makes it difficult to focus on the important sounds--my girls' voices, my husband's voice, and all of the horrible, ear-peeling, window-shattering voice auditions that Simon comments on during the beginning stages of American Idol.
Then there's work. Usually, I can separate work from home and leave it there, shake it off, and go to the next thing; but I have found myself unusually irritated today. How hard can it be? Just take the order, punch it in, serve it hot, make sure the drinks are flowing, and follow procedure. For some reason it was in the air today that 'higher ups' (i.e. a more experienced server) felt their need and purpose in life was to show me how I was NOT doing what I needing to be doing via the Babysitting Method. In other words, proverbially taking me by the hand and showing me via the visual demo how to do something I had, for all intense purposes, simply forgotten to do. Something that can be funny if it`s made to be funny, but is something I find, in any other case, virtually and pragmatically insulting.
A better way? Just point it out in words, tell me I f***ed up and go about your business. In other words, tell me what I did wrong and then leave me the hell alone. It`s a respect thing. And it goes both ways. I don`t need you OR your dog telling me what to do if it`s not going to be delivered in the same respectful way I would deliver to you.
I guess I can abide in that method insofar as it being one I would use, without intent to insult, to ensure that what I was saying was being heard and understood. There is and always has been a teacher at the root of my soul. But for some reason, when it is the other way around, I find it belittling and even laced with sarcasm. Why would that be?
Perhaps this is it. The sole reason for my irritation when all is said and done (and the rest of it only adding the the mix, rather than being the cause)--coming into this kind of attitude once more--this superiority complex. I am half inclined to say that if this is how it's going to be, then change my shift now, because I won't put up with it. Another B. Another small- or narrow-minded small town dweller whose ambitions to be superior do not rise above the local level or personal level (as in to become better than they are even within their surrounding, but simply content to make everyone else seem smaller.) Another batch of simpletons content to carry themselves as a self-perceived big fish in a small pond. Or better yet, a self-perceived better fish in THE (any) pond.
Like it or not, I do understand and have known for years that these kinds of attitudes do exist and I`m going to run into them no matter where I work, what I do, or where I go. So why the big deal? Why does this entire situation, which seemed small and easy to shed, warrant this entire diatribe of a blog? It really is something that this whole unit of spillage came from something that seemed so relatively insignificant in the whole of things.
Maybe just because the manner in which this is all brought out seems so very condescending. I mean this is not to say that I am above them, myself. I could say that it's not really that complicated a job, that a well-trained monkey could do it, etc., etc., but that's a lie. You have to have a certain amount of finesse juggling coffee cups, drink trays, dish trays, handling dishes when clearing, and most importantly handling trays of hot food, coffee pots, and other various juggling acts around babies in highchairs. You also have to have the willpower and brain to punch in exactly what was ordered, missing nothing, keeping track of multiple tables of multiple orders, pouring drinks, serving soup, putting steak knives on steak orders and dipping sauces with the chicken nuggets, and figure out how to kindly ask the cooks to fix their mistakes or help you fix yours.
But it doesn`t take a degree or any amount of formal training to be good, or even mediocre, waitress. A lot of things get missed and no waitress in the world is exempt from mistakes. You forget to bring table 2 their glass of water and table 4 hasn't ordered yet. You come back from the kitchen, forget what mission you were on, and get sidetracked by another customer who flags you down for napkins. Meanwhile, table 4 is still waiting, they have kids who are screaming, the phone is ringing, another order is buzzing in your pocket, and the touch-screen till is causing you flustered grief. It happens to the best of them. So what makes any one of them think, especially when they`ve never even left their surroundings to attain new life experience, both within and out of work-related situations, that they are somehow better because they can snidely `show you` the right way to do something?
Considering I've never done this, I think I'm doing pretty good. I try to greet everything and everyone with a smile or at least can-do attitude, and maybe that makes me appear ditzy, but I get what the customer wants, I fix their orders, I work for their satisfaction, I get the job done, and every waitress experiences scenarios like that every day. Just like I have done with any other job I've ever had.
Quite honestly, I think I irk the shit out of *her.*
And quite honestly, she irks me, too, with her `specific` ways of doing everything even though it`s not her restaurant. For me, though, her quirks are not problematic. Life goes on and I ignore her for the most part. Nod my head and smile and do it my way anyway.
It just lends itself to the theory and further philosophy of moral fiber, personal belief systems, self-psycho-analysis (not to my degree, of course, because I take it too far, usually) and most of all, ability to cope, to adapt, to modify, to see change as growth and not loss of control.
But, I digress. That is not my problem and I absolutely refuse to deal with her. I am not her problem. She is not mine. I do everything that I can to make the job easier for everyone else, because that`s the way I work, and then I just keep on moving. I had much difficulty getting away from conflict or tension daily with the other job, getting away from that person, getting away by means of discussion or distraction with others, but in this new scenario, there are plenty of scenes to bounce off of and thusly, find recovery (both in the mistakes I make and in getting breathing room from that other person.) I will not allow this woman, no matter how much she tries or how little I know to talk to me, treat me, act towards me in the same manner as the dictator of yore. I just find it difficult to walk around intention to avoid confrontation and sulking when they have been confronted. Life is life, people. Confrontation happens all the time. Too little is as unhealthy as too much.
That being said, then it`s really time to get off the defensive side of the board and create an offense. I really need to not care if she likes me or not (which I don`t think I have to this point---working with the other guy really made me realize that I really, REALLY don`t give a flying s*** about what the other one thinks because I`m doing the job I need to do and the jobs that need to be done and doing them well, with a competent, capable mind, and doing enough to help others out, too) and I need to just go about my job like I have been, not giving a shit. I guess it just boils down to control and no one will ever get mine.
Everything is pissing me off! And why is that? I haven't got a hot clue in hell reason for why. Unless, that is, of course, you consider Post Menstrual Syndrome, which doesn't even exist yet (so far as the medical community has registered, anyway) and that grinding M & M's fiercely between your teeth means SOMETHING.
Noise pollution/overload? The fan from the downstairs bathroom is driving me to a fist-slamming mode of frustration because it is one of about a trillion other things in this house that works like it was from the fifties. Oh wait, it WAS from the fifties. Okay, maybe not the actual fan assembly. More like the 80's and the house was built in the fifties. But whatever. The main problem is: it's loud and it reminds me of all the other little projects that are forced into a semi-existing priority list between my husband, me, and the house. The humming carries upstairs, vibrating the living room floor, and creating this overall drumming underlay of sound that makes it difficult to focus on the important sounds--my girls' voices, my husband's voice, and all of the horrible, ear-peeling, window-shattering voice auditions that Simon comments on during the beginning stages of American Idol.
Then there's work. Usually, I can separate work from home and leave it there, shake it off, and go to the next thing; but I have found myself unusually irritated today. How hard can it be? Just take the order, punch it in, serve it hot, make sure the drinks are flowing, and follow procedure. For some reason it was in the air today that 'higher ups' (i.e. a more experienced server) felt their need and purpose in life was to show me how I was NOT doing what I needing to be doing via the Babysitting Method. In other words, proverbially taking me by the hand and showing me via the visual demo how to do something I had, for all intense purposes, simply forgotten to do. Something that can be funny if it`s made to be funny, but is something I find, in any other case, virtually and pragmatically insulting.
A better way? Just point it out in words, tell me I f***ed up and go about your business. In other words, tell me what I did wrong and then leave me the hell alone. It`s a respect thing. And it goes both ways. I don`t need you OR your dog telling me what to do if it`s not going to be delivered in the same respectful way I would deliver to you.
I guess I can abide in that method insofar as it being one I would use, without intent to insult, to ensure that what I was saying was being heard and understood. There is and always has been a teacher at the root of my soul. But for some reason, when it is the other way around, I find it belittling and even laced with sarcasm. Why would that be?
Perhaps this is it. The sole reason for my irritation when all is said and done (and the rest of it only adding the the mix, rather than being the cause)--coming into this kind of attitude once more--this superiority complex. I am half inclined to say that if this is how it's going to be, then change my shift now, because I won't put up with it. Another B. Another small- or narrow-minded small town dweller whose ambitions to be superior do not rise above the local level or personal level (as in to become better than they are even within their surrounding, but simply content to make everyone else seem smaller.) Another batch of simpletons content to carry themselves as a self-perceived big fish in a small pond. Or better yet, a self-perceived better fish in THE (any) pond.
Like it or not, I do understand and have known for years that these kinds of attitudes do exist and I`m going to run into them no matter where I work, what I do, or where I go. So why the big deal? Why does this entire situation, which seemed small and easy to shed, warrant this entire diatribe of a blog? It really is something that this whole unit of spillage came from something that seemed so relatively insignificant in the whole of things.
Maybe just because the manner in which this is all brought out seems so very condescending. I mean this is not to say that I am above them, myself. I could say that it's not really that complicated a job, that a well-trained monkey could do it, etc., etc., but that's a lie. You have to have a certain amount of finesse juggling coffee cups, drink trays, dish trays, handling dishes when clearing, and most importantly handling trays of hot food, coffee pots, and other various juggling acts around babies in highchairs. You also have to have the willpower and brain to punch in exactly what was ordered, missing nothing, keeping track of multiple tables of multiple orders, pouring drinks, serving soup, putting steak knives on steak orders and dipping sauces with the chicken nuggets, and figure out how to kindly ask the cooks to fix their mistakes or help you fix yours.
But it doesn`t take a degree or any amount of formal training to be good, or even mediocre, waitress. A lot of things get missed and no waitress in the world is exempt from mistakes. You forget to bring table 2 their glass of water and table 4 hasn't ordered yet. You come back from the kitchen, forget what mission you were on, and get sidetracked by another customer who flags you down for napkins. Meanwhile, table 4 is still waiting, they have kids who are screaming, the phone is ringing, another order is buzzing in your pocket, and the touch-screen till is causing you flustered grief. It happens to the best of them. So what makes any one of them think, especially when they`ve never even left their surroundings to attain new life experience, both within and out of work-related situations, that they are somehow better because they can snidely `show you` the right way to do something?
Considering I've never done this, I think I'm doing pretty good. I try to greet everything and everyone with a smile or at least can-do attitude, and maybe that makes me appear ditzy, but I get what the customer wants, I fix their orders, I work for their satisfaction, I get the job done, and every waitress experiences scenarios like that every day. Just like I have done with any other job I've ever had.
Quite honestly, I think I irk the shit out of *her.*
And quite honestly, she irks me, too, with her `specific` ways of doing everything even though it`s not her restaurant. For me, though, her quirks are not problematic. Life goes on and I ignore her for the most part. Nod my head and smile and do it my way anyway.
It just lends itself to the theory and further philosophy of moral fiber, personal belief systems, self-psycho-analysis (not to my degree, of course, because I take it too far, usually) and most of all, ability to cope, to adapt, to modify, to see change as growth and not loss of control.
But, I digress. That is not my problem and I absolutely refuse to deal with her. I am not her problem. She is not mine. I do everything that I can to make the job easier for everyone else, because that`s the way I work, and then I just keep on moving. I had much difficulty getting away from conflict or tension daily with the other job, getting away from that person, getting away by means of discussion or distraction with others, but in this new scenario, there are plenty of scenes to bounce off of and thusly, find recovery (both in the mistakes I make and in getting breathing room from that other person.) I will not allow this woman, no matter how much she tries or how little I know to talk to me, treat me, act towards me in the same manner as the dictator of yore. I just find it difficult to walk around intention to avoid confrontation and sulking when they have been confronted. Life is life, people. Confrontation happens all the time. Too little is as unhealthy as too much.
That being said, then it`s really time to get off the defensive side of the board and create an offense. I really need to not care if she likes me or not (which I don`t think I have to this point---working with the other guy really made me realize that I really, REALLY don`t give a flying s*** about what the other one thinks because I`m doing the job I need to do and the jobs that need to be done and doing them well, with a competent, capable mind, and doing enough to help others out, too) and I need to just go about my job like I have been, not giving a shit. I guess it just boils down to control and no one will ever get mine.
10 January 2009
I HATE the phone.
What am I supposed to do? I guess I just don't have the kind of... whatever you call... skills, habits of keeping in touch like other people. Computer is the fastest easiest way, but that doesn't make it bad. It just makes it convenient. I say I am never too busy for friends and family, but I've just spent SO MUCH OF MY DAMNED LIFE ON THE COMPUTER that it's easier. The phone is an intrusion on life. I hate it when it rings, I hate dialing, I hate everything about Alexander Graham Bell's damned invention.
I mean what the hell? Email/write every few months to get all the info because I couldn't be bothered before? It's all that I can do TO ask, to remember to ask, to remember to BE nosey! I really don't know the difference between nosey and caring except the mindset. Bullshit!! I call when I do because that's when I can stand waiting no longer. And why do I wait? Because I hate being on the phone! I hate calling and inconveniencing people. The EASIEST excuse for not doing something, but also the TRUEST for me. Wow. She really damned me. I hate phoning. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It seems more impersonal than anything and I DO NOT LIKE hearing problems I cannot fix, cannot say anything about, monitoring what I say, filtering everything that comes out of my mouth, trying to explain without gesture, eye contact. It is a weekness, much like some of those who hate writing. WHAT am I supposed to do?
I hate it when people phone to "get the scoop" because I think it's nosey. I hate gossip, I hate gossiping, I feel less of a person. I think I hate phoning because no one listens when I talk anyway and because EVERYONE seems to take things I say the wrong way. It doesn't matter how I say it or that I have good things to say! Or that I've learned a million ways to filter or communicate. It all just comes out like poo-poo anyway! It's just ANOTHER venue for people to find a way to take me WRONG!
And maybe I'm just so damned pissy about it because I'm so damned worried about coming off "exactly the right way." Well then, that's not such a fault, is it? I can honestly say I AM NOT trying to get it right or perfect anymore, but if the people closest to me are having the problem, then whose problem is it really? MINE. And that pisses me off. So why be on the phone? I just want to exchange dialogue, not exhert this drama over words. Maybe I should go on a word hiatus as well. Because I haven't fared any better there, either.
I hate it because you can't read conversational cues like when to shut up. Or start talking. I hate being interupted and I hate interupting. Hate both with a passion. A fierce passion. I hate dead silence. I hate condescending tones on the phone. I hate crying. Hearing or doing. I hate it. I've only JUST begun to appreciate talking on the phone with Kyle. And he's my husband!! I hate being checked up on, I hate having to stop what I'm doing to listen and I hate inflicting the same on others. I hate hearing my voice when I DO talk and I hate how I'm condemned for talking or ridiculed for talking fast. I HATE being on the phone!! I LOVE that texting has become so readily available. I love that emails can be read at the reader's LEISURELY convenience. I love that emails are far less intrusive than its aural counterpart.
I hate the phone.
I mean what the hell? Email/write every few months to get all the info because I couldn't be bothered before? It's all that I can do TO ask, to remember to ask, to remember to BE nosey! I really don't know the difference between nosey and caring except the mindset. Bullshit!! I call when I do because that's when I can stand waiting no longer. And why do I wait? Because I hate being on the phone! I hate calling and inconveniencing people. The EASIEST excuse for not doing something, but also the TRUEST for me. Wow. She really damned me. I hate phoning. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It seems more impersonal than anything and I DO NOT LIKE hearing problems I cannot fix, cannot say anything about, monitoring what I say, filtering everything that comes out of my mouth, trying to explain without gesture, eye contact. It is a weekness, much like some of those who hate writing. WHAT am I supposed to do?
I hate it when people phone to "get the scoop" because I think it's nosey. I hate gossip, I hate gossiping, I feel less of a person. I think I hate phoning because no one listens when I talk anyway and because EVERYONE seems to take things I say the wrong way. It doesn't matter how I say it or that I have good things to say! Or that I've learned a million ways to filter or communicate. It all just comes out like poo-poo anyway! It's just ANOTHER venue for people to find a way to take me WRONG!
And maybe I'm just so damned pissy about it because I'm so damned worried about coming off "exactly the right way." Well then, that's not such a fault, is it? I can honestly say I AM NOT trying to get it right or perfect anymore, but if the people closest to me are having the problem, then whose problem is it really? MINE. And that pisses me off. So why be on the phone? I just want to exchange dialogue, not exhert this drama over words. Maybe I should go on a word hiatus as well. Because I haven't fared any better there, either.
I hate it because you can't read conversational cues like when to shut up. Or start talking. I hate being interupted and I hate interupting. Hate both with a passion. A fierce passion. I hate dead silence. I hate condescending tones on the phone. I hate crying. Hearing or doing. I hate it. I've only JUST begun to appreciate talking on the phone with Kyle. And he's my husband!! I hate being checked up on, I hate having to stop what I'm doing to listen and I hate inflicting the same on others. I hate hearing my voice when I DO talk and I hate how I'm condemned for talking or ridiculed for talking fast. I HATE being on the phone!! I LOVE that texting has become so readily available. I love that emails can be read at the reader's LEISURELY convenience. I love that emails are far less intrusive than its aural counterpart.
I hate the phone.
09 January 2009
I cracked just before Christmas...
I wrote this in my other blog some time ago, after I'd completed the ginormous project of painting the entire upstairs.
* * *
Well... Oh my God, I don't know what to say. I mean, really, thank you so--
-much!! *tear*breathe*
Okay. *sigh* I'd like to thank first and foremost my publicists and agent. Without their undying support, I would not be here. Bug and Doll, you know who you are. HB? Yeah. You were there for me through the worst of it, from the beginning until the completed project. You helped me. You helped me so much.
I just can't believe it...
Thank you so much!
Uhh-m, I'd like to thank the paint mixing people, the supply store, um... the (*cue polite laugh) till clerks who rang me through. I just don't know what to say. I'd like to thank all the little people who made this possible. This award goes out to you, this award... IS for you.
But mostly I would be amiss to not mention the hugest thank you my husband and my beautiful girls. This aware goes out to them-
No! Don't you dare cue the music!
-for their patience in living in disastrous conditions, having to navigate the treacherous piles of clutter in the living room, giving up their comfortable lives for the sake of Crazy Mommy Painting The House and um..
Wait, wait, wait!
Just... thank you all, dear people, for this award. This- *shakes head, tears up, shakes award* prize for the biggest job ever. I love you. Mommy loves you. *Mwa!* to you... goodnight, go to bed. Thank you, Academy!!
--*exit stage right
* * *
Well... Oh my God, I don't know what to say. I mean, really, thank you so--
-much!! *tear*breathe*
Okay. *sigh* I'd like to thank first and foremost my publicists and agent. Without their undying support, I would not be here. Bug and Doll, you know who you are. HB? Yeah. You were there for me through the worst of it, from the beginning until the completed project. You helped me. You helped me so much.
I just can't believe it...
Thank you so much!
Uhh-m, I'd like to thank the paint mixing people, the supply store, um... the (*cue polite laugh) till clerks who rang me through. I just don't know what to say. I'd like to thank all the little people who made this possible. This award goes out to you, this award... IS for you.
But mostly I would be amiss to not mention the hugest thank you my husband and my beautiful girls. This aware goes out to them-
No! Don't you dare cue the music!
-for their patience in living in disastrous conditions, having to navigate the treacherous piles of clutter in the living room, giving up their comfortable lives for the sake of Crazy Mommy Painting The House and um..
Wait, wait, wait!
Just... thank you all, dear people, for this award. This- *shakes head, tears up, shakes award* prize for the biggest job ever. I love you. Mommy loves you. *Mwa!* to you... goodnight, go to bed. Thank you, Academy!!
--*exit stage right
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)