Archive for life
Days of Grace: 312/365
Posted by: | Comments- Sleep
- Sleeping on the couch during the day
- Almost done with the grand house reorg of 2010
- Caffeine Free Diet Coke
- American Pickers on the History Channel makes me realize (like Hoarders) that even though it feels like I have a lot of stuff, I really don’t.
Days of Grace: 310/365
Posted by: | Comments- A really powerful reading today
- Spending the afternoon with my best friend, Laurel
- My first event photography gig tonight
- At which I got a front row seat (thanks to the camera) and hung out with great people
- This photo.
Crushed.
Posted by: | CommentsThis is why I don’t get my hopes up about anything. This is why I plan for the worst. This is why, whenever I put myself out there and ask for what I want and what I need, my body is wracked with anxiety. Because things I wish for–things I really, really want–do not come true.
My new boss has vetoed my request to hire 2 new employees. I had previously understood this request, which also included a promotion and raise for me, would be approved. This morning, my supervisor sent me an email titled “a set back.” She’s going to bat for me, for the organization. It’s a matter of money, and a matter of helping leadership really understand what investment it takes to make their vision possible. Maybe down the line she will make the case in a way that I haven’t. For now, none of it is moving forward.
I understand that the decision is not personal. It is not about me. Yet, I am beyond disappointed. I am crushed.
I have been living as if … planning as if … spending the extra money I’d make in my head. I’ve fantasized about telling my ex I don’t need his child support anymore, becoming free from him, and equal to him. About having enough money to pay off my and Steve’s bills. About finally being able to save for a new house. About being free from the financial worries in our household. And I’ve laughed about how little more money it would take to actually set us (me) free.
I’ve fantasized about the work too. About mentoring a team. About the team telling our organization’s story at a whole new level because we finally had enough staff to do it. About moving away from being a doer and stepping into the strategic leadership role I’ve worked so hard to reach over the past 20 years. About planning and implementing a desperately needed internal communications program. About letting go of writing about science, as interesting as it is, and letting someone who is a trained science writer do a better job. About building a world-class organizational website that sets the standard for blending New Media with traditional web communication. About being equal, at last, to my peers in terms of title, stature and staffing.
About becoming who I am supposed to be in my profession.
I do all of this personal work, the PSYCH-K, the Nia, the shiva nata, the journaling, the shamanic meditation, the belly button gazing, in order to change my patterns. I asked for what I needed and wanted. I hoped for my request to come true. I wrote detailed proposals and job descriptions. I researched salary ranges. I put the whole thing in a big pink bubble and sent it on its way, saying And So It Is, trusting that the universe is on my side.
The bubble has popped. The answer is no. And here I sit, a mess of sadness and anger and disappointment and frustration and anxiety. Chocolate is not helping. I hoped, and once again, I am told that I don’t get to have what I want. Now, I sit here wondering what the lesson is, what I’m doing wrong, what I am supposed to do next.
Days of Grace: 299/300
Posted by: | Comments- A kid-free weekend
- Steve accompanied me to Ballet Nouveau Colorado’s performance last night. It was wonderful to share something I really love with him.
- Today, a haircut. I’ve needed one for at least a week, so it’s a relief. And highlights, too–the ones I got for the wedding are grown out by 4 inches. And, I get to catch up with my stylist/friend Marie.
- Yesterday was a full day of photoshoots for work. I love working with pro photographers. I learn something new every time.
- Tonight: me, Steve, wine, couch. Bliss.
Random Tuesday: Ting Tings, V-Day, Girl Stuff & Singing
Posted by: | CommentsOne. I love this song. Lauren turned me onto it.
Two. Goddamn girl issues … again.
In December, I had the 28-day-long period. Then 35 days of nothing. Now, I’m on day 12 of off-again, on-again, clothes-ruining bleeding. One minute I’m spotting, the next I’m flooding. And the zits! And bloating! I haven’t been able to wear my wedding ring for almost 2 weeks.
I have actually begun to reconsider a uterine ablation, damn the intrusiveness, because I am so sick of this particular girl issue. I know that it’s perimenopause, even though I’m “too young.” If not the operation, which destroys the uterine lining for good, then definitely the herbs, because they pretty much stopped my period.
Three. Despite getting to bed at 10 pm and sleeping until 7 am, I am tired.
What’s up with that? Last week, I barely got 5 hours a night and I was fine. Now I get 9 hours and can barely keep my eyes open.
Four. (some) Reporters are stupid.
I just spent three emails arguing with one, trying to get her to run a correction or clarification because she included my researchers’ grants as examples in a story about an entirely different university. She doesn’t see the problem, or (I suspect) she’s too lazy to fix it. This is why journalism is failing: young reporters who don’t care about accurate reporting, causing none of us to trust what they say.
Five. Valentine’s Day #5 with Steve.
Aw, look how in love we were 5 years ago. And still are.
For our first Valentine’s Day, he hit it out of the park: Dinner and bellydance show, the best love letter I’d ever received in my life, and a me-time date at a spa for a chocolate-themed half-day. And, I think, flowers. He has an amazing talent for building bouquets for me. This is V-Day #5 for us, or #1 of our marriage.
Steve lets me help figure out what we’re going to do but won’t let me pay for anything. We’re going to have the afternoon together: a reading, a movie, and dinner at no-reservations-needed place, maybe Whole Foods. And chocolate. And sex. Because what’s Valentine’s Day without it?
(And for my single readers, here’s a toast to you. Yes, it sucks. But there is hope for all in love.)
Six. CSAPs, and yay for singing.
Lauren’s taking our state test this week. To prepare, her teachers have sent home enormous homework packets since she got back from Christmas vacation. She’s a good test-taker (got that from me, thank god), and she’s always done well on the benchmark testing they do in non CSAP years.
There’s a teacher named Ms. Squiggle–Lauren says it’s her real name, swear to god–who is in charge of the testing process and is promising each child who attends school of CSAP days not one but TWO ice cream bars and an extra 10, no 20, no 40 minutes of recess. Or so the story goes.
This morning in the car, Lauren said she was nervous. So instead of talking about it, we sang songs. And then, she wasn’t nervous anymore. Yay for singing.
Seven. Gah! Asking!
I’ve been asked to occasionally take photos at events thrown by a favorite group of mine. Yesterday, the group’s communications person asked me to take pictures at a half-dozen upcoming events. I’d be happy to do it. However, I decided that I’d like to be compensated in some form of trade, so I asked specifically for what I want. And now? I’m freaking out. Oh my god, did I just ruin it? Are they going to find someone else? Did I screw up the friendship with my friends who run the group? Gah! Part of me wants to take it back with much apologizing. I mean, how dare I? Who do I think I am? I haven’t seen a reply to that email yet (almost 24 hours … oh my anxious gut). I am freaking out. I hate asking. HATE.
This is a continuing series about what is on my mind, triggered by the beautiful and wonderful UnMom. You should read her blog, and you should read the blogs of other Random Tuesday Thoughts-ers, because, like me, they are cool.
Show & Tell: In which I meet an International Film Star
Posted by: | CommentsGather round and sit criss-cross-applesauce for Show & Tell, hosted by the lovely Mel of Stirrup Queens. Find more circle time people on here blog, here.
Every-other August, my dad’s parents would fly my family from Denver to Houston. Gamps would pick us up in the Cadillac with the air conditioning, or sometimes the white Oldsmobile station wagon, then drive us three hours east to Lake Charles, Louisiana. We’d stay with them for two of the hottest, most humid weeks of the year.
Luckily, their house was on Prien Lake, a large salt water body full of fish and shrimp and crabs and petroleum refinery run-off. We children couldn’t have cared less about being poisoned. All we wanted to do was stay cool and have fun.
The first several days were a blast, full of swimming and waterskiing and catching crabs off the warf. When the weight of the day was too heavy for even 10 and 5 and 2 year olds, we’d lay, gap-legged on the air conditioned sun porch, my brother and sister playing games and me reading my grandma’s endless Danielle Steele library and beginning my sexual education.
Inevitably, by the end of the first week, we’d be bored. Usually our whines were met with our parents’ requests that we go outside and play. The two-screen movie theater offered short relief. The mall was nothing to speak of, but I’d walk it with my cousin Nancy or my Lake Charles friend Annette. Atari hadn’t been invented. The Internet was still a glimmer in Al Gore’s eye. VCRs? No such thing. Bor-ring. You can only get so waterlogged before becoming a puddle of misery.
Until one day, Ganny asked if we’d like to meet a movie star.
We piled into the Caddy, stopping in town to pick up Annette. The Caddy took a little bounce as we sped across Kiss Me Quick Bridge on the way to the bayou. There, we found the shrimp restaurant where the star was making an appearance. We got into line and waited. And waited and waited. And then we saw him. Or was it her?
It was the International Film Star, Benji! We were so excited! To see a dog! Who had been in a movie! And done all sorts of tricks and stopped bad guys!!
As you can tell from the photo, I am the only one who thought it was cool. My brother Billy has perfected the Fuck You look at age 5. My sister Katy, age 2 here, obviously needed a nap. My friend Annette is distracted by something shiny to the left as she fingers her “personally autographed” photo of the star. Benji cannot drag his/her gaze away from the tantalizing view of tons and tons of raw shrimp being unloaded just over there.
It was a thrill.
The other day, I ordered Benji on Netflix and watched it with Lauren. When I was a kid, I LOVED that movie. Today, not so much. But Lauren loved it, and when I showed her this photo of Momma, just a couple years older than she is now, with the International Film Star, I rose up at least one notch on the scale of maternal coolness. Or maybe a half-notch.
I also once hung out with American Idol finalist Ace Young in the VIP area of a strip club and somewhere have a photo of him leering at my tits. My tits were covered, by the way. I don’t think I gained any cool points for that one.
The mystery of the missing white socks
Posted by: | CommentsThis weekend, I yelled at Lauren.
“What are you doing with all of your socks? I just bought you six pair and they’re gone! Are you taking them off at school and leaving them there?”
Lauren is a notorious sock-hater, sneaky about putting them on to appease me then ditching them later. She vehemently denied doing anything with her socks, and agreed that they seemed to be mysteriously missing.
I didn’t quite believe her. I have spent more money than any parent should on socks. I’ve even given the child my socks because she says they’re more comfortable. When I was getting dressed for the gym last week, I noticed I had no workout socks in my drawer. I checked her sock drawer and nope, no socks.
Had the mysterious sock monster that lives in the dryer struck again? Seriously, how could about 15 pair of socks just disappear?
Fast forward to last night: We hear the usual Daisy ferret scream, indicating either Jack or Teddy has invaded her secret Girls Only Hideout behind a lateral file next to the washer and dryer. For the first time in a while, Steve pulled out the cabinet.
“Lynn, you gotta come see this!” he called upstairs.
This is what I saw:
Steve counted 36 socks, 1 pair of white panties and 1 white T-shirt back there, all pilfered from the laundry pile in the basement. Also, note the shoe, which is Teddy’s favorite thing to steal, besides Steve’s wallet, phone and iPod.
We thought Teddy was the resident thief. Turns out he’s an amateur.
Daisy Ferret, master thief-stress. I owe Lauren an apology.
