twice in the last few days I’ve had people remark to me on how I’m always moving, work hard, etc.– this from random folks who have no real stake one way or another in flattering or insulting or really passing any sort of judgment– they’re just commenting on something that looks weird and noteworthy to them, one of the the samples ladies, one of the shipping guys– and I’m sure part of it is cultural: I’m a whitegirl, driven by that ingrained protestant work ethic fer shizzle; but part of it is also personal– I’m just like that– a few years ago I articulated it for the first time: I have two speeds, Go and Idle. lately I’ve been spending my downtime in wicked Idle, like seriously– mostly hanging out in bed, reading, snacking, watching movies, reading and reading some more, snoozing. and then I get up and Go again. lately I’ve been thinking a bit about how I don’t do all of this very strategically or smartly– I could, say, take some of that downtime and allocate it to rather less down activities, in my own interests, say, improving myself, my station in the world, and so on. I’m quite sure that a lot of other people with my amount of education are working a lot smarter than I am, and this troubles me somewhat, that I runrunrun but not to any particularly chosen or outlined ends, only expending energy and then recovering and doing it all over again. but, too, this is a particular phase– I am nothing if not superduper phasey. generally speaking, the last few days I’ve felt remarkably calmer and more peaceful and even happy with the course of my life– it’s nothing that I’ve envisioned or plotted or planned and it’s awfully hairbrained and kind of pointless in some ways and could use some tweaking and tucking, but really, yknow what? it fits. this is the way I am. and it’s not all bad. hello, perspective from today.
random pet stuff
I was just lying here in bed, browsing around the neighborhood, with charlie tuna purring away on my shoulder as is customary, when in barged iggy for some pets and love. this is his m.o.– he’s queenly and standoffish until he’s ready and then by golly you’d better be ready. for several years this only happened while I was sitting on the couch, and preferably late in the evening– only recently, since the new mattress on the floor which george now braves, does iggy follow his lead and come to demand his pets from me here. he’s a funny cat– he was the lone survivor of some farm kittens whose mother died, and in those early days he was tiny and ferocious– nearly feral, I suppose, so in part I feel that living with him is a kind of slow process of taming. he’s got this long luxurious fur that’s crazy soft and clings like the dickens to anything– your nose, clothes, furniture, hand while petting, itself– and he requires grooming, as the shorthair charlie tuna does not (but likes it)– iggy looooooves to be brushed, which is a good thing, as he gets wicked mats– I’m unable to keep on top of them, but I try a bit and then throw up my hands to lion cut in the summer– it’s like starting from scratch, like a cat crew cut after a chewing gum episode. I tend to gently, lovingly manhandle my pets– I pick up the cats whenever I feel like it, cradle them like babies, carry them around for a bit, then put them down again, so they’re used to handling– I also give them their space to meander, but I feel that some amount of cuddling is required for any being’s optimal health– and I forget and am sometimes rudely reminded that others have different sorts of relationships with their pets– not too long ago while staying at a friend’s house I unthinkingly bent down and picked up her young cat and got a freakout and faceful of claws into the bargain, only belatedly realizing that of course she would maintain a more respectful personal space policy with her cat, she’s like that. I have a hard time not rescuing or adopting every stray I see or hear about– that is simply the cloth I am cut from– but having gone the rounds with way more big dogs than I can actually afford to feed and care for, I’ve now set a limit of three creatures at a time for myself. which is not to say that I wouldn’t love to also have a parrot and some goats and some chickens and several more dogs and some more of those awesome swoopy goldfish and a koi pond and a cow and a horse to ride and heck may an elephant or two. if I ever win the lottery maybe I’ll become one of those weird old eccentrics with a live menagerie. but for now I’ve got my boys, and they make my home and life much brighter, more companionable, amusing, hairy, and warm.
super crazy amazing awesome
julie blackmon (c/o VSL)
lord above, I’m in love. I’m reminded of a colorful, quirky sally mann.
breathe
this morning I suddenly feel better. I didn’t expect to feel better, still not having done the Big Things on my sword of damocles to-do list– but apparently I have done other things and other things have rolled around somewhat– and there is, I think, a lesson in this which I offer up to you out there in case it gives something good at a time when you might need it.
some of us, who knows, maybe many of us, have a lot of monsters in our heads. all sizes and shapes with very pinchy snarly teeth. sometimes they get the upper hand and you see all the world through their grinchy little eyes: you look up into snow falling under streetlights in the evening, and you do not think how beautiful— instead you think I am as fleeting and insignificant as one of those flakes of ice. you find no consolation in the complex architecture of frost. you say to yourself I MUST pull myself up by my boot straps! only to argue physics and logic with yourself.
there are different kinds of forward propulsion. I had some significant figures in my younger days show me a lot of the fist-down-on-the-table variety. boom boom. you WILL do x or y! to which it was all too easy to conform on the surface while underneath saying no, I WON’T— thereby splitting myself in two time and again.
I am trying to learn another kind of forward propulsion: the loving open hand on my own back, propelling me forward; the hand in my own guiding me, walking with me. and, yes, I know how late it is in the game to be learning, to be studying these things, and there is shame and embarrassment in such an enterprise– but by golly I’m fighting for my life.
and so the lesson I am taking this morning, once again and all over again for the hundredth time as if for the first time, is this: gentle steps. rather than setting up the To Do list monumentally in such a way that it will make me, once again, dig in my heels and retreat under the covers with a book, going la la la, I’m not listening— instead. small steps. like writing in the paper journal every morning, once again. (it’s been much much too long.) allowing myself some timeouts without belaboring the self-recrimination. keeping getting up in the morning and going to work, where sometimes I do some things that feel good and right and leave me feeling stronger with important realizations about myself. keeping looking up at that snow under the streetlights– in time I will see it again in all its glittering splendor and realize I am breathing and breathe.
bad belly stew
ingredients:
- too much pasta, just prior to bed: wolfed
- one weekend of sheer avoidance
- 6-8 issues with no apparent solution
- stacks of unopened mail
- one more monday looming
proper emulsification depends critically on knowing and then repeating to yourself exactly what you really should be doing, while not doing it.
slosh & ferment.
wake at 3:45 a.m. & enjoy!
blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah saturday blah blah blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah fiction blah laundry blah movies blah. blah blah blah extremely fucking cold blah. blah blah jets crazy loud blah blah blah blah. bourbon blah blah. blah blah.
scribbles
someone I love lies sleeping, invisible to me, leashed by dreams.
I’ve walked in circles clockwise and still can’t seem to unwind.
all the loaves are stone and the sky is bitter with wine.
the stairs are so small I can’t step confidently,
and the flight disappears up and up around a bend.
I’m in the middle with no choice but to climb
or slip and maybe tumble. I’m afraid of falling
and all the spiny things like what birds carry
to build their wicked nests in bare treetops.
the sky hangs above, snagged by a thousand fingers
that drag down the grey light into evening.
somehow engines and lights roar through the dark
on flightpaths surpassing my understanding:
I’ve stood in those terminals, proceeded
faster than the floor moving under me,
and still failed to arrive. my baggage
begins to feel like ballast, so much sand
sealed up to stow against a flood. if I heave
it over surely gravity will let me go.
how is it my hands are so roped
to the necks of all these bags,
canvas sodden under my palms?
music crush #2445
coming up on the third weekend of our friend kate’s curated series, method to madness, at links hall in chicago. attended performances last weekend with gina and laura, but I suspect this wkend will be better in part due to chris salveter’s (aka judson claiborne) participation.
… sorry, I had originally put a video of him playing live here– there are a few fan videos on youtube— but, oddly, when I try to embed and then play them, I get a message saying they’re no longer available. weird and annoying. hmph.
identities I’ve inhabited
aka, “work” I’ve done. my own little ad hoc eenventory. some for-pay, some not so much.
babysitter.
extraordinaire, some would say. man, I really miss some of those kids sometimes– grownups with kids of their own now, surely– and wonder where they are now. hedi and shawni especially. such awesome kids.
gopher for a machine parts design company.
summer job in the motor city doncha know. I carpooled with the administrative assistant in the cadillac her husband had bought her. it had very cushy seats and floated so over the road, I felt perpetually nauseated. we listened to bad FM, and then at the office I pretty much made coffee and can’t even remember anything else. it was a sea of drafting tables manned by crusty old michigan guys and young fellas from slavic countries who drove lurid sports cars with “for sale” signs in the window.
food service.
during college I held a string of minimum wage, tipless, glamorless countergirl food jobs (never been the waitress type). favorite was the now defunct drakes sandwich shop. yes, I am a former drakette, it’s true. I rocked the blue smock.
editorial assistant for a literary journal.
I was all about poetry in those days, and checking out the literary world. ultimately, it wasn’t really an identity I wanted to inhabit fully. have I ever found one I did? now there is the real question. but in the end I didn’t feel concretely productive enough doing this work.
field sales rep for a college textbook publisher.
my territory was the south bay area, running as far south as san luis obispo. liked the adventuring around and getting to see california. didn’t so much like lugging the textbooks or wishing I were one of the students again or cold calling on adjunct community college instructors who felt compelled to tell me what a disservice I was doing their students by hawking unnecessary new editions. didn’t like working out of my home and feeling immensely isolated in a new state far from the world I knew, surrounded by apartment complexes and freeways. lasted all of about five minutes, but it got me out to cali, which at the time was a very good thing.
temp.
oh you know. receptionist, file clerk, peon, the newspaper that lines the bottom of the birdcage.
video production assistant.
I worked for a guy who had done some documentary work for pbs. his current gigs were videoke!, making home videos for people who liked karaoke. the client, clearly, was a japanese company. shockingly, it never took off. but for a little while I got to run around carrying tapes and getting people to sign releases and fetching coffee. so glamorous.
barista/nightclub busser.
opposite ends of the clock, but these constituted my livelihood, such as it was, for a little while there. I had crushes on boys in bands. I wore striped tights and bustiers. it was silly and larky and dark and kinda dumb.
software technical support/client services.
this thread lasted awhile. I’m good at communicating with people and also solving problems. I did this kind of work in a few different states, moving around with my husband at the time for his chef work opportunities.
web development.
did this one for several years, both full time and as a contractor. messed myself up with taxes as a contractor, incidentally– wouldn’t recommend it. worked with some lovely teams of people in some really great, smart environments. lived through bubbles and layoffs. there’s a lot in here I’m glossing over in the interests of overview. anyway, hit a point where the only path forward seemed to be project management, and my heart just wasn’t in it. then I went to grad school and let my skillz get all obsolete, dangit.
publication designer.
did letterpress work and digital page design through the center for the book in iowa. loved this work, actually, maybe more than a lot of others– felt like it fleshed out and gave soul to the kinds of things I’d been doing with the web– but I also got intimidated by how deeply people inhabited this professional space– book people are Book People. and I just could never really make that wholehearted a leap. I’ve always been a generalist, glossing several different angles and rejoicing in the connections between them. I don’t feel finished with this one, but I’ll have to find my way along it in my own way.
baker.
I held this position twice, once for a pretty hip restaurant and once for a food co-op/bakehouse. I did both breads and desserts. tough work, especially on the standing stems. I like baking, love it, really, but in the end I didn’t love it enough to be serious about it longterm.
college course instructor.
as a grad student for eight years (count ’em) I taught literature to undergrads and writing and teaching writing to preservice teachers. in some ways teaching was the hardest work I’ve ever done. it certainly caused me to do some deep, personal evaluation.
research assistant.
worked closely with my advisor on an array of interconnected projects: subsequent editions of an awesome textbook she wrote on writing fieldwork, a web site for teachers and fieldworkers, courses she taught on related subjects. she was incredibly generous with her mind, experience, time, heart, and insights. she was way more than an advisor– she was a dear friend and a colleague and taught me a lot about the real work we can do in this world. I miss her, even though I’m happier out of academia.
phone registerer for a national standardized testing company.
uh huh. had a lil breakdown when I decided to abandon my phd. took awhile to get myself back up to breathing status. this is what I did in the interval. kept myself sane collecting amazing names.
project manager: new products and web resources for a wallcoverings company.
oh look, ended up a project manager after all. ;) this is now. I wear a slew of hats. sometimes I really really miss working in the ethos of a bunch of techie geeks. the design world is a new culture for me. not always 100% sure it’s a complete fit, but, obviously, what has ever been? on the good days I’m learning a lot about sourcing materials and vendors for making concrete things and the juggling act that is project management. I’m primarily responsible for digging the company web site out of a state of languishment and developing a secure site for distributors. so I have some good projects and good experiences. and also I work with some really lovely friends, which any way you cut it is a gift.
life as a gas-guzzler
who’s driving this thing, anyway??
oh, right. it’s me.
so what’s with all the swerves and cul-de-sacs?
I’ve heard that some people actually call up triple-A ahead of time and get triptiks so they know where all the construction is so they can avoid it. I’ve heard that some people actually, yknow, plan their course. like, rather than meandering.
then there are some of us who drive without insurance (tho not me anymore, thankyouverymuch) and plow into ditches.
some of us go yee-hawing off the paved highways at top speeds and earn glorious views for their daring.
some of us putter along the dark forest track with the lowbeams on.
some make a habit of zooming up the parking lane and cutting in front of others without signalling even.
me, the road that winds out behind is an interesting, curvy one– but sometimes I have real concerns about the course ahead.
sometimes it’s good just to get out and walk, literally. george agrees.