Category: sathead

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after tumble, realignment

lately I've been zooming– exhilaration and also no slow quiet time to meander among the various threads of vox posts and comments, to catch up with the 'hood (which has been feeling a little too big actually lately–not that I really want to cut anyone, just feeling that difficulty keeping up), to read and ponder and perhaps a little bit vegetate.

last night I had an evening at home by myself– went grocery shopping, took a bath, threw on slouchy cotton clothes, and did nothing in particular other than refilling the well of quiet and stillness. took george for a walk and savored one especially crystalline moment in the mild night air, gazing up through the pattern of tree branches at the sky. munched on baby carrots and good tortilla chips. watched dumb tv on the web. gloried in the nothing-particular of it.

often there's been too much of this in my life, the alone, nothing-particular time– but fill it up, even with most delicious delights, and I begin to feel like a piece of flimsy fabric, whipping in the wind– and must retreat and recharge. the most literal definition of an introvert, I suppose. also just preternaturally dependent on pockets of clear air for reflecting and mulling– brings me back to a sense of center.

as I stood beneath that tree, I stretched my neck and back and felt a number of soft pops and shifts– literally my spine realigning– and was reminded of the last visit to a chiropractor and the x-rays that showed developing scoliosis in two places– there is a literal emblem in this moment of realignment.

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dating: I feel ill

so. I have not always selected my romantic partners with the utmost care– hell, I don’t know that I’ve actually so much selected them at all– more like closed my eyes and tumbled into whatever was right before me.

I’ve gone in for the headlong plunge time and again. and ended up involved with some guys whose priorities were way off from my own. so this time I’m trying to go about it differently. coached by my counsellor, I’ve recognized and owned that what I want, the bottom line, is a partner. and I posted a pretty comprehensive personals ad to this effect on craigslist (it was a good one, if I do say so myself) and have spent the last week fielding responses and meeting a couple of people. that is, two exactly. got several responses, immediately deleted several, did a couple of exchanges with a handful of others, and at this point two have materialized to the point of going out, one of them twice. these two are pretty great dating prospects, I think– our priorities are way more aligned than I’ve experienced in a really long time, heck maybe ever. I like both of these guys right off the bat quite a lot– and now I feel utterly sick about this whole process: dating, choosing.

I know I shouldn’t feel sick about this, it makes no logical sense– but I do, literally. evidently I’m having a really hard time making the process of getting romantically and physically involved more conscious and mindful. evidently I’m a bit of a junkie to the eyes-closed-forward-plunge approach. instead, now, this way, I have to be more present for and accountable to my decisions. it’s all much more substantively real as a consequence, the stakes higher.

truth be told, the collapse of my marriage eons and eons ago still somewhat plagues me. I do not ever ever ever want to find myself so utterly lost inside of a relationship, so confused and unrecognizable to myself and damaging to someone I love. taking the steps actually, actively, consciously to seek out a partner is terrifying to me.

ohmygod, I’m being very dramatickal and annoying, I know. I’m kind of embarrassed to write about this at all, but I need to process this. it’s cuckoo.

I owe myself the opportunity to be selective. I owe myself the time to gauge how I feel about a person before getting involved physically and having my judgment inevitably swayed by all the complicating that involvement sets in motion. I deserve to seek out the very best alignment of people that is available– and the other person deserves this, too– a sarah who is fully present and engaged and standing open-eyed with her decisions. this should not be something that makes me feel ill.

if you have some thoughts about why in the world this would feel so wrong and crazy-making, I would love to hear them.

possibly it’s a cognitive behavioral thing simply, breaking from the comfortable course of habit to a more difficult unaccustomed way of proceeding, that creates this feeling of “wrongness”.

it’s really kind of awful, though. these are lovely people. and conceivably there are even more lovely people sitting in my email inbox, and I’ve simply hit a point of overwhelm and can’t bear to pursue any more if two is already too many. I don’t trust my judgment, apparently– I question the validity of finding two people so appealing right off the bat– like, maybe I’m not being selective enough. at the same time, I don’t want to not choose either of these people, really dislike the thought of dismissing someone– I know this may sound greedy and gross– what it is is I struggle with boundaries, with saying “no” to people, with disappointing them.

jesus, I feel like a certifiable mess. but I swear– I don’t want to be alone forever, lord help me.

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hooray for friday!

it’s been a heckuva week. I feel like I need to sleep for about a day– but there’s funstuff planned, which also makes me very happy. just get me through today, please– fridays at my place of work can on occasion be racheted-up anxiety fests. I’m keeping my expectations low: somewhat peace and getting a bit of work taken care of. wish me luck. and then weekend.

incidentally, there’s this funny thing about friday night– it always seems like there should be extra hours in it because, yknow, it’s the weekend— but then you get to it and find that it’s pretty much just like any other evening of the week– the sun goes down at about the same time, etcetera. it’s a bit of a mindjam.

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baby needed a nap

sometimes I am pretty much just a complainer complaining. I’m now having poster’s remorse over last, as feeling it’s a misrepresentation of the internal landscape– truth is, I really enjoyed this trip, despite haze of sleep deprivation– i like that I am fairly competent at the work I do and that I can be called upon in these ways, professionally. I like having responsibilities– I guess the lurking truth here is that I’m craving a higher professional profile, and the back seat is simply a metaphor. but I’m still earning my moments at the wheel in this case.

I also want to provide a coda about where the sathead is right now: happyplace. last week this time I was struggling just to tread water– but worked the multi-tiered approach to pulling up one’s own socks– a piece here, a piece there: a good long dogwalk into previously unexplored territory, paying of a couple of bills, some situps, some reaching out to people network, a bit of tinkering at the play table– and wah-la, last night therapy was basically a brag session about how hard I rock.

it’s a rolly rolly rollercoaster, yknow? whiz bang. the view right now has some sunshine and a whiff of spring.

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the tuesday that wouldn’t quit

whew. hello, wednesday, old buddy old pal.

yesterday was one looooooooooo-oooooooooo-ooooooooooong day. and I didn’t even move house or go to court or wait while a loved one had surgery or anything major. it was Just Plain Long. went like this:

1. alarm 4:45 a.m. ouch.– no, wait– this ouch is also contingent on the going out the night before, drinking, staying up too late– yeah, weird for a monday, but they happen. so, yeah, 4:45 a.m. was painful.

2. stumble around getting dressed, etcetera, which process involved accidentally throwing my laptop on the floor. fortunately, my hand was not actually that far from the ground, and it landed on the throw rug screen side down and, thank deities, did not die. I already had enough adrenalin going at that point to jumpstart a groggy elephant.

3. arrive at work building at 5:30 for agreed-upon 5:30 start time– and sit in the cold and dark for colleagues to arrive and do various things inside the building– depart at 6:00. small gr.


4. drive three hours for a business meeting in another state (meanwhile, have I mentioned that I punch a time clock? oh, don’t get me started). got to move out of the back seat and drive for a delightful hour or so– I tend to get carsick– not actually hurling, just green and evil-feeling. car companions work– they talk about work things, they talk to people on their blackberries (once a descent hour arrives), they send email messages on their blackberries– they work. and I? mainly I exist, just shy of evil-feeling.

5. have very good meeting, which involved the need for me to be quite on and lucid and sharp– was not nearly at the top of my game, but managed it, in the main.

6. receive multiple facility tours– which would have been honestly fascinating (working in manufacturing is this incredible new learning process to me), if only I hadn’t felt like the bottom of the cat box. ooh and aah and manage note to run into any machinery and cause a whole rube goldberg type disaster.

7. return to car and ride three hours return in back seat while colleagues mainly continue to talk on and type into blackberries.

8. did I mention the daylong headache?

9. nausea.

10. arrive back at work parking lot just prior to closing time– don’t even step inside, just get in car, drive home, planning to nap.

11. get in bed, in utter delight– and then lie there, unable to sleep because I am actually too tired, for an hour or so.

12. get up and walk the poor desperate dog.

13. return– do various unuseful things in a fugue state, still unable to sleep.

14. start watching grey’s anatomy episodes on dvd and become unable to quit clicking forward to the next one as each ends. those cliffhangers! they getcha. finally, in exhausted self-disgust, eject the disk in the middle of an episode– at 1:30 in the morning.

15. go to sleep.

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ISO partner

just so we’re clear: navelgazer’s getting back into the dating game, once again. it’s time.

and time to start drafting a new personal ad for CL (seeing as how I was somehow dumb and neglected to forward myself copies of the old ones, gr. well, anyway– a fresh start is probably appropriate).

so this is one of my current writing projects.

another one is an RFP for work website redesign.

I leave it to my reader to determine which writing project is more fun.

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saturday walk around the neighborhood

one of the things I miss about my old morning commute to rogers park is the pigeons– I’d get stuck at a light behind a line of cars on clark street, sucking my teeth in frustration, and then I’d glance up– and there would be a giant flock of pigeons turning and swooping through the air. it consistently stopped my breath– and teeth-sucking– and transported me, for a few minutes at least, to another plane of being, a calmer, sweeter one.

today around 3 in the afternoon I hit my customary wall and climbed into bed, half afraid that I wouldn’t be able to snap out of it for the rest of the weekend– so when I woke from a lovely nap a couple of hours later, I stood myself up and took george out while there was still an ounce of daylight in the sky and I could still enjoy the experience of walking.

and set out in a different direction than one of our standard, get-it-done dogwalks. we headed over the wilson street river bridge– just as a pair of canada geese flew low just ahead to alight on the water, gracefully, side by side. and I let myself stop and peer down over the railing to about ten or twelve ducks below, paddling around in the swirling water like little quacking tugboats. mallards, males and females. I gave myself the opportunity to stand there, without rushing on, just watching their orange feet go and their compact bodies cut through the current. and then I looked up– to a flock of pigeons as it turned in a wheel over my head and swung south along the river to bank and turned back again, and again and again in a shifting gyre that carried them finally out of view. the cell phone camera does no justice to this experience.

and then george and I continued onward into terra incognita– across the river into ravenswood manor, past a house with many birdhouses– across the street-level el tracks just before the bar came down for a train, past a string of closed shops– a ballet school, an oil painting studio, a place with posters for tai chi and yoga, a coffee shop, string lights in the window.

and then on down francisco and over lawrence into ronan park, which runs along the river and which I’ve been meaning to visit ever since I moved here a year and a half ago.

and there was not another soul around. only the cold quiet of a late weekend afternoon in late winter and me and george, walking, making discoveries in our own back yard.

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navelly life evaluation

I honestly know that self comparison with the outward appearance of other people’s lives is both inaccurate and unuseful– and yet there seem to be these moments of large life transition that come in waves. right now I feel a certain swirl around me– friends who had waited out the initial earlier moments of such things are now getting married and having babies. other friends are deeply involved in further developing their professional careers and areas of expertise. people have projects. identity constructs. and I am largely without one, currently.

lately I’m feeling like I have occupied too many subject positions without a deep level of commitment or sustained ideological identification. I’m using big academic words. signifies just how clunky my understanding of where I am right now is. I’m trying to get a handle on it.

it’s not just one thing or another, life never is– it’s a complex network of factors that conspire to leave me feeling a bit adrift and nonplussed. what do I believe in? what is important and worth my focus and directed energy and care? this is, probably, a postmodern dilemma: result of too many opportunities, too many perspectives conspiring to leave nothing at all certain or decisive. granted, I tend to be a P, in myers-briggs terms, and so incline toward open-endedness and indecision. but this feels like a larger, longer sea-change– a point at which I’m feeling, perhaps, that I crave a somewhat more consistent self-definition.

for some people the drive is internal: I am X or Y. I do Z. these things define me so. for some people the driving factors are external: they fall into a line of work, they need the money, or they find themselves pregnant inadvertently and choose to proceed– and the necessities of life to some extent dictate the course of decisions.

when you live so much alone, so thoroughly independently, without any sort of religion or culture or really overt doctrinal guiding systems of thought, existence can be a little overwhelming and unbearably arbitrary. I know I tend to generalize and engage in all kinds of distorted thinking– I may still be doing it here, though I am trying, this morning with a sudden boon of clarity and strength to begin to address it, somehow, to scratch the surface, to do so without huge distortions– as much as is ever possible for a person enmeshed in their own existence.

I have a very good therapist. I believe in the kind of work I’ve done and continue to do in therapy. honestly, I tend to think many more people could benefit from a little guided self-examination than choose to do so. I also know, after all these years of doing it, that analytical thinking constructs can very easily be circular and as much of an illness as any other. analysis does not solve. thoughtful action solves.

and so this morning I am hanging up clothes and organizing my space as I organize my thinking. I am putting up a bulletin board by my drawing table and pinning up scraps of ideas that have drifted around the clutter. this weekend I am going to try to follow through on a few small things. and to take a couple of small steps up out of the mire of my own lack of motivation in any particular direction. this morning the horizon feels lighter than it has been feeling. and tonight we spring forward.

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whew! non-drowsy indeed

good golly.

I discovered the merits of robitussin DM during a bout of bronchitis in boarding school. this was eons ago. the stuff was magical– it calmed the coughing, and when I did cough, it actually got the crap up out of my lungs.

more recently I’d heard mention, somewhere, anecdotally, of how robitussin DM had moved behind the pharmacy counter due to some hallucinagenic effects. well, apparently this rumor was untrue– because, when I had the flu recently and was coughing up a lung with a spooky squeak to it, I was thrilled to see my old friend on the regular pharmacy shelf– and even better DM in the generic store brand. awesome. cuz I’m cheap that way.

only– what’s this? “non-drowsy formula” on the label? well, okay. not the way I remembered the stuff, but that couldn’t be such a bad thing, could it?

it could be malarkey, is what it could be. home from work at 6:30, coughing, squeaking, take a dose of the old standby cough syrup and lie down to rest my eyes just for a bit– and, oops, hello, midnight.

I’m thinking walgreens has a definition of “non-drowsy” I’m unfamiliar with.

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meaningless distractions: case in point #45872q20957

so I decided I wanted to photoshop up a spiffy little “Embassador of Vox” sash for karen, just, yknow, because it’s so her (and, uh, yeah, this is the sort of thing I do at 3 a.m.).

so I did a little google image search for a sash image I could manipulate…

and ended up just getting all waylaid– because sashes are some freaky &$^*(%#@, man…

and now I do have to go to sleep before my brain implodes. so no sash for karen– but really? honestly? it’s for the best.Â