Holy YAY! Just got home from a lecture at The Living Temple in Huntington Beach by Dr. Brian Clement, the Director of the Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida, and I am just buzzing on air. There is just something so right about learning what more can be done to balance the mind, body, and spirit. Tonight, I learned more about what's good for my body. What's good for my body is good for my mind and my spirit, and so on, and so on, and so on.
I still haven't put down the french fries for good, and there might be another bite of steak in my future, but after the Vegan nachos I had tonight, and after the lecture, I'm think'n it might not be that hard to bump up my 60-70% vegan/Raw eating for a higher percentage.
Good sigh... I have so many other things to post, about some more of my recent adventures eating out, but I better get some sleep now.
Nighty Night. Hope everyone is sleeping tight.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Movie Anyone?
Last Thursday I went to dinner with my friend Joan at this little place on Main Street in Seal Beach called Cafe Lafayette. We both ordered the grilled cheese and tomato bisque soup combo. Is what we ate relevant to this post? Not in the least. Was the tomato bisque and grilled cheese so good I’m going back for this meal again? Um…yeah. I’ll definitely be adding this place and that bisque to my eating out rotation!
Anyway, over dinner Joan and I were discussing the best meals we’ve had, the best movies we’ve seen, etc., and, because of my recent post about dining for one, this led me to ask Joan if she’d eaten many meals alone or seen many movies on her own. Joan has, of course, done both. Her being in her 50s, and a widow, she’s as independent as I am. But, she confirmed that there were certain places and certain days and times she wouldn’t eat alone because of how she felt she was being perceived as a woman sitting alone. I liked that she understood that feeling, as I do, which made me feel validated. (Everyone likes a parking pass.)
I always love to see my friend Joan, and love her company, but because last night started out with Joan validating other notions of mine, I was feel’n purdy good and was big lov’n Joan last night. “Are you kidding me? I’d go nuts in a place as dark as this,” Joan said, when she saw that my new place gets no natural light. “Right? I have been feeling a little nutty every morning when I wake up and I know the sun is shining but it’s not getting inside to greet me,” I said. I told Joan that turning a light on, no matter what time a day it is, to do anything in the bedroom, kitchen, or the bathroom, was making me a little batty, too.
(Did you really think I could hold back some of the other reasons I’ll be moving again soon?)
Later, Joan told me, “I moved into this one house, and from the beginning it never felt like it was my place.” Joan had owned and lived in that house right before she moved into the home she’s been living in, and wouldn’t move from, now. She told me when she put that other house on the market, it sold in one day. Hmmm. There’s validation.
But this post is not about knowing, instantly, that some living space is a hop on the way and not a home. I want to share what I shared with Joan last night, that we both laughed about, but which was, at the time, not funny at all for me. It was the experience of going to my first movie alone.
I was 18 years old, living in South Lake Tahoe, which is where I’d moved to with Jen’s older sister (my high school best friend) about 3 weeks after graduating high school. It was October 31st, Halloween. Jen’s sister (we’ll call her JS from now on, as I can’t remember if I’ve called her by another name in a previous post) and her boyfriend had plans to go to a Halloween costume party and didn’t think to invite me to come along. I was too proud to ask if I could join. That’s probably because JS and I were headed for the ‘outs’ as friends pretty soon after we’d moved to Tahoe together. We were young and we were growing apart.
So this girl, me, totally pissed off and depressed that she’s going to spend Halloween alone, decides that she’s going to make a bold move in becoming the independent woman she sees herself as and she’s going to go to a movie alone. The problem? When we are young, somewhere down deep we often know who we are meant to be, who we really are and have always been, but this recognition sometimes comes before we have actually become that person. See, in youth we don’t quite get that everything in life, every step up or fall down, is designed to grow us into our skin.
So, my first movie alone, that was one of the first steps I actively took in being the independent girl and it SUCKED. I wasn’t actually that independent yet, so of course it blew. Plus, before I got to the movie theater, it all sounded good in theory: Buy the ticket, get some popcorn, slip into the dark and into a seat, mostly undetected, and do it. Just do it. Be the person who can sit there watching a movie alone in a public theater and be comfortable enough to laugh and cry at the movie without the consolation of a movie companion to share in those tears and giggles.
And it all would have been great, really, except I was alone at this movie. I wasn’t just feeling alone, really alone. I was actually alone. I was the only person who was attended the movie, Married to the Mob with Alec Baldwin and Michelle Pfeiffer. They only ran the reel for me, the sole ticket holder. I was also probably the only patron in the entire small, neighborhood theater that night, as I never saw another soul except the concessions guy.
When I bought my popcorn from this concessions guy, this pimple faced teenager looked at me like he was trying to figure out who was the more pathetic. Him, for having to work when all his friends were probably all running around in Star Trek costumes, or me, who obviously didn’t have a friend in the world else I’d not be at a movie alone on Halloween night.
There may have been one other person at the theater aside from me and the Trek-tastic teenager who asked, “Would you like butter on your popcorn?” I almost saw the guy running the reel. But I didn’t. Instead, I heard him. His voice broke into the silent darkness through the small, square, dimly-lit window, the one at the back of the theater where the movie projector peeks through to light the screen up with the evening’s entertainment delight. Projector guy asked, “Is anyone there?” He was probably just double checking, didn’t believe the rumor that Trek-tastic spread that some chick was sitting ALL by herself waiting for the movie to start.
I was there. I had been there for about eight minutes, eating my popcorn, sulking in the dark silence, and feeling silly and stupid for thinking I’d need to get to the theater early enough to get a good seat. I’d also been arguing with myself. Are you really going to stay, like an asshole alone? If I leave, who is going to think I am a wimp? I can’t ask that pimple-faced popcorn guy for my money back. No. You have to stay. You have to prove you can do this. You never have to go to a movie alone again if you don’t want to, but you have to do it this time. You have to get through this. You can’t cry. Just do this.
At the time, I couldn’t understand why I thought I had something to prove to myself. Now, I understand that whatever I had to prove then would eventually become the thing that I could just do—without thought, without reservation, without fear. It took showing myself that I could go to the movies alone many more times before I wasn’t proving it anymore. Finally, I got to where I wanted to be. I was going to see a movie because I wanted to see the movie and I didn’t want to wait around to see it until someone could see it with me.
I think that’s how I have been trying to live my life, jumping in a little more and not waiting for the life guard. Most things are wonderful when shared with others, but they don’t stop being wonderful just because they’re being enjoyed alone. Everyone wants someone who can laugh at the same movie with them, but not everyone remembers to keep laughing regardless.
Right now, I'm trying to find as many laughs as I can find in the Now. That way, whoever is going to join me will know how to find me; They can follow the sound of my laughter.
Anyway, over dinner Joan and I were discussing the best meals we’ve had, the best movies we’ve seen, etc., and, because of my recent post about dining for one, this led me to ask Joan if she’d eaten many meals alone or seen many movies on her own. Joan has, of course, done both. Her being in her 50s, and a widow, she’s as independent as I am. But, she confirmed that there were certain places and certain days and times she wouldn’t eat alone because of how she felt she was being perceived as a woman sitting alone. I liked that she understood that feeling, as I do, which made me feel validated. (Everyone likes a parking pass.)
I always love to see my friend Joan, and love her company, but because last night started out with Joan validating other notions of mine, I was feel’n purdy good and was big lov’n Joan last night. “Are you kidding me? I’d go nuts in a place as dark as this,” Joan said, when she saw that my new place gets no natural light. “Right? I have been feeling a little nutty every morning when I wake up and I know the sun is shining but it’s not getting inside to greet me,” I said. I told Joan that turning a light on, no matter what time a day it is, to do anything in the bedroom, kitchen, or the bathroom, was making me a little batty, too.
(Did you really think I could hold back some of the other reasons I’ll be moving again soon?)
Later, Joan told me, “I moved into this one house, and from the beginning it never felt like it was my place.” Joan had owned and lived in that house right before she moved into the home she’s been living in, and wouldn’t move from, now. She told me when she put that other house on the market, it sold in one day. Hmmm. There’s validation.
But this post is not about knowing, instantly, that some living space is a hop on the way and not a home. I want to share what I shared with Joan last night, that we both laughed about, but which was, at the time, not funny at all for me. It was the experience of going to my first movie alone.
I was 18 years old, living in South Lake Tahoe, which is where I’d moved to with Jen’s older sister (my high school best friend) about 3 weeks after graduating high school. It was October 31st, Halloween. Jen’s sister (we’ll call her JS from now on, as I can’t remember if I’ve called her by another name in a previous post) and her boyfriend had plans to go to a Halloween costume party and didn’t think to invite me to come along. I was too proud to ask if I could join. That’s probably because JS and I were headed for the ‘outs’ as friends pretty soon after we’d moved to Tahoe together. We were young and we were growing apart.
So this girl, me, totally pissed off and depressed that she’s going to spend Halloween alone, decides that she’s going to make a bold move in becoming the independent woman she sees herself as and she’s going to go to a movie alone. The problem? When we are young, somewhere down deep we often know who we are meant to be, who we really are and have always been, but this recognition sometimes comes before we have actually become that person. See, in youth we don’t quite get that everything in life, every step up or fall down, is designed to grow us into our skin.
So, my first movie alone, that was one of the first steps I actively took in being the independent girl and it SUCKED. I wasn’t actually that independent yet, so of course it blew. Plus, before I got to the movie theater, it all sounded good in theory: Buy the ticket, get some popcorn, slip into the dark and into a seat, mostly undetected, and do it. Just do it. Be the person who can sit there watching a movie alone in a public theater and be comfortable enough to laugh and cry at the movie without the consolation of a movie companion to share in those tears and giggles.
And it all would have been great, really, except I was alone at this movie. I wasn’t just feeling alone, really alone. I was actually alone. I was the only person who was attended the movie, Married to the Mob with Alec Baldwin and Michelle Pfeiffer. They only ran the reel for me, the sole ticket holder. I was also probably the only patron in the entire small, neighborhood theater that night, as I never saw another soul except the concessions guy.
When I bought my popcorn from this concessions guy, this pimple faced teenager looked at me like he was trying to figure out who was the more pathetic. Him, for having to work when all his friends were probably all running around in Star Trek costumes, or me, who obviously didn’t have a friend in the world else I’d not be at a movie alone on Halloween night.
There may have been one other person at the theater aside from me and the Trek-tastic teenager who asked, “Would you like butter on your popcorn?” I almost saw the guy running the reel. But I didn’t. Instead, I heard him. His voice broke into the silent darkness through the small, square, dimly-lit window, the one at the back of the theater where the movie projector peeks through to light the screen up with the evening’s entertainment delight. Projector guy asked, “Is anyone there?” He was probably just double checking, didn’t believe the rumor that Trek-tastic spread that some chick was sitting ALL by herself waiting for the movie to start.
I was there. I had been there for about eight minutes, eating my popcorn, sulking in the dark silence, and feeling silly and stupid for thinking I’d need to get to the theater early enough to get a good seat. I’d also been arguing with myself. Are you really going to stay, like an asshole alone? If I leave, who is going to think I am a wimp? I can’t ask that pimple-faced popcorn guy for my money back. No. You have to stay. You have to prove you can do this. You never have to go to a movie alone again if you don’t want to, but you have to do it this time. You have to get through this. You can’t cry. Just do this.
At the time, I couldn’t understand why I thought I had something to prove to myself. Now, I understand that whatever I had to prove then would eventually become the thing that I could just do—without thought, without reservation, without fear. It took showing myself that I could go to the movies alone many more times before I wasn’t proving it anymore. Finally, I got to where I wanted to be. I was going to see a movie because I wanted to see the movie and I didn’t want to wait around to see it until someone could see it with me.
I think that’s how I have been trying to live my life, jumping in a little more and not waiting for the life guard. Most things are wonderful when shared with others, but they don’t stop being wonderful just because they’re being enjoyed alone. Everyone wants someone who can laugh at the same movie with them, but not everyone remembers to keep laughing regardless.
Right now, I'm trying to find as many laughs as I can find in the Now. That way, whoever is going to join me will know how to find me; They can follow the sound of my laughter.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Eating Out
This move I’ve just made, this giving up the place I’ve called home for such a long time, it has had an interesting effect on me. After leaving behind 13 years of sanctuary and comfort (wait, scratch that…after leaving behind mostly 11 years of contented living, then almost 2 years of life-interrupted by assholes), and then moving to a place that is not a home, but a stop on the way, I am finding that I am not as comfortable in this transitional place.
I know that’s a big DUH! These things take time, settling in, making a new place a home. Do they not? But, for many reasons that I won’t get into now, I won’t be settling into this new place. (I’ll wait until I’ve moved to give the list of my discomforts in its entirety.) Okay, I’ll reveal one reason now. Can you say: black widows, roaches, and mosquitoes? Me too, but I don’t want to. Can you say standing water on a golf course brings a variety of bugs one never knew existed? (Okay, we’re done. I know you can say all of that as well as I can.)
Alright, alright, since I am so good at complaining to get things off my chest, and because I wouldn't want you to think I stopped lying about things, about writing one thing then admitting I'm full of it in the next sentence, I'll let loose a couple more complaints. First, I am a little miffed at the fact that an errant golf ball blew a hole in the seat of one of the four Adirondack chairs I have on the back cement deck. Also, where at first I was ready to meet some golfer who was going to show up at my back sliding-glass door looking for his golf ball (a ball which I would have told him rolled under my bed), now I'm actually kinda creeped out about having golfers and strange neighbors walking their dogs milling about 5 feet from the living /dining room where I am doing my living and dining. I think both my needs for privacy and the need to feel safe are being a bit over challenged.
Anyway, with the bug reason mentioned, among others reasons not, I find I don’t want to be home much. And that’s okay! It’s actually been fun.
Here’s the deal. Because I was so comfortable in my old place, I did stay home a lot. But now that I am not wanting to be at home, more accurately not wanting to be at “my transitional spot” I have been out and about more and I seem to be asking, “How do you do?”, and saying, “My name is Leven. What’s yours?” more.
I am turning back into the girl I was when I was traveling (all over the United States) for the mortgage company I used to work for. This was one of the few jobs in my life I have LOVED and back then, not so many years ago (about 3-4), I was the girl who, by the default of the traveling, ate out at least two meals a day most days of the month.
Of course my pocket book, nor my waistline, can afford two meals out a day now. But my budget can totally handle a glass of vino at a wine bar on a lazy Sunday evening, a cup of oatmeal at a breakfast counter on a post-run Saturday morning, and a side of beans and a salad at a Mexican restaurant for a between-errands afternoon lunch.
In case you were so inclined, it should be noted that all singles, eating alones, or dining for ones will find themselves pretty dang comfortable at a breakfast counter or a bar ledge for lunch, that is if they are comfortable with the concept of eating alone in public in the first place. Now on a Friday/Saturday night, when people are on the prowl, I am not that comfortable going it alone (though I’ve done it, many a time, at home and on travel).
The thing with eating out/having a drink alone on a Friday/Saturday night is that while times may have changed, perceptions, bad or good, remain. It’s sad, and maybe not even true, but this opinion is coming from a girl who has seen more movies alone than with people, and who has probably eaten more than 300 meals alone in her work travels. So, while I can’t explain it, exactly, there’s just something that feels distinctly different to me about being alone in a bar or restaurant after the sun has gone down or the lights in the establishment have gone dim.
Again, I could be imagining it, but once it’s past 6/7:00 o-clock-ish, I’ve felt an energy coming from others, on many occasions, ranging from pity to jealousy. Whether people are feeling sorry for me that I am alone on a Saturday night or impressed that I could enjoy my skin flying it solo for a Friday evening, I can feel them trying to figure me out, trying to come up with what my story is and why no one has accompanied with me.
I’ve even been told, also more than once, by both men and women (especially when I traveled), that they were, in fact, wondering: Is she waiting for someone? Is she looking for someone? Either way, will someone come to join her? Yup. Once the conversation is afoot, and the comfort of five minutes or my open personality has pervaded the air, many a friendly stranger I’ve met in my eating out travels has told me they’d been curious about my situation.
And, the relief on people’s faces, when they’ve learned that I was eating alone because I was traveling for work… whoa. Interesting. Curiously interesting. It has appeared to me, time after time, that a woman eating alone while traveling for work is so much better compared to an alternative reason for her eating alone. The alternative in my case has always been that I’ve just wanted to get the hell out of the house (now, more than ever), regardless if any of my friends can join me or not. Bottom line…people don’t notice, wonder about, or worry for the guy sitting alone at the bar on a Friday/Saturday night as they do for the girl sitting alone.
But, I digress. The point is, because I have been eating out a lot lately, I have been talking to a lot more strangers than usual, which I LOVE! No joke. Because I just love people—all the customary characters and the odd balls—I’ve been chatting up strangers my whole life (I get it from my dad). I’m such a stranger engager that I had an ex-boyfriend who once asked me to scale back on my friendly when we went out. This, because I was chatting up a cute old man who was waiting for his bathroom-tripped wife at the hostess stand of the place me and said ex were about to eat dinner at.
What nerve the ex had. But there was no stopping me. He had no choice but to grow accustom to my ways. Just as you can’t tell the wind to stop blowing or the sun to stop shining, because it’s in their nature to do so, you can’t tell an extrovert to go inward.
Being forever outward bound, last Sunday, over a glass of vino at one of my favorite wine bars, this sociable sister met the cutest mid-twenties married couple, her 26, him 24, who were both worried about getting laid off because of the way the current economy has affected their industry. Their work is what brought the two of them together, as they met on the job and still work together. However, the possibility of losing their careers wasn’t the main topic of conversation. How trouble, specifically bar fights, seems to find the husband volleyed most of the conversational ball.
I liked the husband’s stories, and the wife’s chiming in, about how many of his bar fights or public altercations have started. I think I believed him when he said he’d never started anything. I definitely believed him when he said he just wasn’t going to let someone else finish it. I could tell he was a scrapper, that one.
The couple reminded me of Chad and Heather. Their stories were limited, though. They never mentioned anything like chasing down a car full of people with a big truck or getting out a baseball bat to make sure the conversation went their way. I am not saying Chad and Heather have ever done that, but this couple being young-ish, in love, and, if challenged, full of just as much spit and fists as Cheather, definitely made me nostalgic for the late Friday/Saturday drink-at-home nights with Chad and Heather when they’d fondly remember some altercation that they’d had with someone, just a week ago or the night previous.
I recently met another guy, not-so-youngish (he just turned 30), who was just as full of piss and vinegar as the husband of the mid-twenties married couple, but who was also just as sweet. Mr. 30 had just gotten back from Vegas where his cousin's wedding had taken place, only he didn't attend the ceremony. When I asked Mr. 30 why not, he said, "Because it's bullshit."
“What’s bullshit?” I asked him. “Weddings? Your cousin’s wedding? Love? Relationships? What?”
Man, I had to know. What if this guy was about to give me insight into the male psyche? But, he had a hard time answering me. “I don’t know,” he said. And when I turned into 20-questions girl, and prodded further, to find out what had soured his heart and why he didn’t think his cousin’s wedding was worth attending, I realized he didn’t know himself enough to answer.
Well, he apparently knew he was an asshole. He said as much when explaining that he’d had a longtime relationship (from age 22-28), but that he didn’t think he was cut out for relationships. “I’m just an asshole,” he said, “I need my space and I can be a real dick about it.” I couldn’t get it out of him how that long-term relationship had ended, but this gal, who he appeared to have really been in love with, seemed to have his number. He said she was the only one who could deal with his moods, on and off ill-tempered swings that he said have been going on since childhood.
The end of their relationship really seemed to have also done a number on him. This guy? He was in no shape and in no way ready for someone. But I was utterly intrigued by him, and surprised that I was able to get so much information out of him. I found myself wondering if he’d ever been that open to a stranger before. Probably not.
Anyway, I'm just finding it pretty cool that as the story of my life has totally changed, and will probably continue to change a lot in the next coming year, I'm enjoying getting to hear so many other people's stories. I enjoyed being asked out by a busboy two weeks ago. It was a pleasure going to a movie and to lunch with the girl Chloe and I met on our last girl’s outing. I was impressed by another girl’s story of picking up her whole life and moving on her own from a small Georgia town to Long Beach, California, where she knows no one.
I loved being educated on the face of music today by three young, hip Eastern Indian guys. They were all sure that the recent Top 40 songs of all time, according to Rolling Stone magazine, were not only an inaccurate representation of the current popular culture’s favorite all-time songs, but that the list, which in their minds was heavily 60s laden, was played ridiculously safe.
I can’t wait to take myself to lunch this weekend to see who I’m going to meet and to see what stories I’ll get to hear. Or, maybe, I'll do a Seal Beach repeat. But, instead of going with my sister and nephew again, like I did last weekend to watch the kite surfers catch air, I might just ride my bike to the beach on my own with my back-pack beach chair chair strapped to my back. Then I'll sit in that chair and watch the kit surfers and smile at the breeze while I crunch and fan my toes into the sand.
Fun.
I know that’s a big DUH! These things take time, settling in, making a new place a home. Do they not? But, for many reasons that I won’t get into now, I won’t be settling into this new place. (I’ll wait until I’ve moved to give the list of my discomforts in its entirety.) Okay, I’ll reveal one reason now. Can you say: black widows, roaches, and mosquitoes? Me too, but I don’t want to. Can you say standing water on a golf course brings a variety of bugs one never knew existed? (Okay, we’re done. I know you can say all of that as well as I can.)
Alright, alright, since I am so good at complaining to get things off my chest, and because I wouldn't want you to think I stopped lying about things, about writing one thing then admitting I'm full of it in the next sentence, I'll let loose a couple more complaints. First, I am a little miffed at the fact that an errant golf ball blew a hole in the seat of one of the four Adirondack chairs I have on the back cement deck. Also, where at first I was ready to meet some golfer who was going to show up at my back sliding-glass door looking for his golf ball (a ball which I would have told him rolled under my bed), now I'm actually kinda creeped out about having golfers and strange neighbors walking their dogs milling about 5 feet from the living /dining room where I am doing my living and dining. I think both my needs for privacy and the need to feel safe are being a bit over challenged.
Anyway, with the bug reason mentioned, among others reasons not, I find I don’t want to be home much. And that’s okay! It’s actually been fun.
Here’s the deal. Because I was so comfortable in my old place, I did stay home a lot. But now that I am not wanting to be at home, more accurately not wanting to be at “my transitional spot” I have been out and about more and I seem to be asking, “How do you do?”, and saying, “My name is Leven. What’s yours?” more.
I am turning back into the girl I was when I was traveling (all over the United States) for the mortgage company I used to work for. This was one of the few jobs in my life I have LOVED and back then, not so many years ago (about 3-4), I was the girl who, by the default of the traveling, ate out at least two meals a day most days of the month.
Of course my pocket book, nor my waistline, can afford two meals out a day now. But my budget can totally handle a glass of vino at a wine bar on a lazy Sunday evening, a cup of oatmeal at a breakfast counter on a post-run Saturday morning, and a side of beans and a salad at a Mexican restaurant for a between-errands afternoon lunch.
In case you were so inclined, it should be noted that all singles, eating alones, or dining for ones will find themselves pretty dang comfortable at a breakfast counter or a bar ledge for lunch, that is if they are comfortable with the concept of eating alone in public in the first place. Now on a Friday/Saturday night, when people are on the prowl, I am not that comfortable going it alone (though I’ve done it, many a time, at home and on travel).
The thing with eating out/having a drink alone on a Friday/Saturday night is that while times may have changed, perceptions, bad or good, remain. It’s sad, and maybe not even true, but this opinion is coming from a girl who has seen more movies alone than with people, and who has probably eaten more than 300 meals alone in her work travels. So, while I can’t explain it, exactly, there’s just something that feels distinctly different to me about being alone in a bar or restaurant after the sun has gone down or the lights in the establishment have gone dim.
Again, I could be imagining it, but once it’s past 6/7:00 o-clock-ish, I’ve felt an energy coming from others, on many occasions, ranging from pity to jealousy. Whether people are feeling sorry for me that I am alone on a Saturday night or impressed that I could enjoy my skin flying it solo for a Friday evening, I can feel them trying to figure me out, trying to come up with what my story is and why no one has accompanied with me.
I’ve even been told, also more than once, by both men and women (especially when I traveled), that they were, in fact, wondering: Is she waiting for someone? Is she looking for someone? Either way, will someone come to join her? Yup. Once the conversation is afoot, and the comfort of five minutes or my open personality has pervaded the air, many a friendly stranger I’ve met in my eating out travels has told me they’d been curious about my situation.
And, the relief on people’s faces, when they’ve learned that I was eating alone because I was traveling for work… whoa. Interesting. Curiously interesting. It has appeared to me, time after time, that a woman eating alone while traveling for work is so much better compared to an alternative reason for her eating alone. The alternative in my case has always been that I’ve just wanted to get the hell out of the house (now, more than ever), regardless if any of my friends can join me or not. Bottom line…people don’t notice, wonder about, or worry for the guy sitting alone at the bar on a Friday/Saturday night as they do for the girl sitting alone.
But, I digress. The point is, because I have been eating out a lot lately, I have been talking to a lot more strangers than usual, which I LOVE! No joke. Because I just love people—all the customary characters and the odd balls—I’ve been chatting up strangers my whole life (I get it from my dad). I’m such a stranger engager that I had an ex-boyfriend who once asked me to scale back on my friendly when we went out. This, because I was chatting up a cute old man who was waiting for his bathroom-tripped wife at the hostess stand of the place me and said ex were about to eat dinner at.
What nerve the ex had. But there was no stopping me. He had no choice but to grow accustom to my ways. Just as you can’t tell the wind to stop blowing or the sun to stop shining, because it’s in their nature to do so, you can’t tell an extrovert to go inward.
Being forever outward bound, last Sunday, over a glass of vino at one of my favorite wine bars, this sociable sister met the cutest mid-twenties married couple, her 26, him 24, who were both worried about getting laid off because of the way the current economy has affected their industry. Their work is what brought the two of them together, as they met on the job and still work together. However, the possibility of losing their careers wasn’t the main topic of conversation. How trouble, specifically bar fights, seems to find the husband volleyed most of the conversational ball.
I liked the husband’s stories, and the wife’s chiming in, about how many of his bar fights or public altercations have started. I think I believed him when he said he’d never started anything. I definitely believed him when he said he just wasn’t going to let someone else finish it. I could tell he was a scrapper, that one.
The couple reminded me of Chad and Heather. Their stories were limited, though. They never mentioned anything like chasing down a car full of people with a big truck or getting out a baseball bat to make sure the conversation went their way. I am not saying Chad and Heather have ever done that, but this couple being young-ish, in love, and, if challenged, full of just as much spit and fists as Cheather, definitely made me nostalgic for the late Friday/Saturday drink-at-home nights with Chad and Heather when they’d fondly remember some altercation that they’d had with someone, just a week ago or the night previous.
I recently met another guy, not-so-youngish (he just turned 30), who was just as full of piss and vinegar as the husband of the mid-twenties married couple, but who was also just as sweet. Mr. 30 had just gotten back from Vegas where his cousin's wedding had taken place, only he didn't attend the ceremony. When I asked Mr. 30 why not, he said, "Because it's bullshit."
“What’s bullshit?” I asked him. “Weddings? Your cousin’s wedding? Love? Relationships? What?”
Man, I had to know. What if this guy was about to give me insight into the male psyche? But, he had a hard time answering me. “I don’t know,” he said. And when I turned into 20-questions girl, and prodded further, to find out what had soured his heart and why he didn’t think his cousin’s wedding was worth attending, I realized he didn’t know himself enough to answer.
Well, he apparently knew he was an asshole. He said as much when explaining that he’d had a longtime relationship (from age 22-28), but that he didn’t think he was cut out for relationships. “I’m just an asshole,” he said, “I need my space and I can be a real dick about it.” I couldn’t get it out of him how that long-term relationship had ended, but this gal, who he appeared to have really been in love with, seemed to have his number. He said she was the only one who could deal with his moods, on and off ill-tempered swings that he said have been going on since childhood.
The end of their relationship really seemed to have also done a number on him. This guy? He was in no shape and in no way ready for someone. But I was utterly intrigued by him, and surprised that I was able to get so much information out of him. I found myself wondering if he’d ever been that open to a stranger before. Probably not.
Anyway, I'm just finding it pretty cool that as the story of my life has totally changed, and will probably continue to change a lot in the next coming year, I'm enjoying getting to hear so many other people's stories. I enjoyed being asked out by a busboy two weeks ago. It was a pleasure going to a movie and to lunch with the girl Chloe and I met on our last girl’s outing. I was impressed by another girl’s story of picking up her whole life and moving on her own from a small Georgia town to Long Beach, California, where she knows no one.
I loved being educated on the face of music today by three young, hip Eastern Indian guys. They were all sure that the recent Top 40 songs of all time, according to Rolling Stone magazine, were not only an inaccurate representation of the current popular culture’s favorite all-time songs, but that the list, which in their minds was heavily 60s laden, was played ridiculously safe.
I can’t wait to take myself to lunch this weekend to see who I’m going to meet and to see what stories I’ll get to hear. Or, maybe, I'll do a Seal Beach repeat. But, instead of going with my sister and nephew again, like I did last weekend to watch the kite surfers catch air, I might just ride my bike to the beach on my own with my back-pack beach chair chair strapped to my back. Then I'll sit in that chair and watch the kit surfers and smile at the breeze while I crunch and fan my toes into the sand.
Fun.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Enjoy your problems.
How is it possible to enjoy your problems? What does that even mean? Well, that’s what I am hoping to personally figure out.
Last Tuesday I went to a lecture at a Gnostic Institute where lectures and meditations are offered to the public on a donation basis. It was at this institute of Universal Esoteric Studies, which is "dedicated to revealing a Sacred Path that exists at the heart of all the world's Wisdom teachings," where I heard the instructor, a Spaniard man of modest stature, say, "Enjoy your problems." He said this during the course of a lecture that was all about how to solve problems. He also said, "Today's problems are tomorrow's solutions.
Sometimes it doesn't feel that way, though, does it? How could enjoying ones problems ever be a possibility, right? Because sometimes, when we're in the middle of a problem, small or big, it feels like the world can F' off and so can the guy driving his car too slow in front of us, or the chick in the grocery store who has 30 items in the 15-or-less line. But, as the instructor pointed out, if we're getting angry at something small, shouldn't we be asking: What has gotten us, our perception of life, so off balance that an inept customer service manager for our cable service can send us to tears?
Okay, so that scenario was very specific to me, and I know most people wouldn't cry over their cable bill, but I did, and my reactive tears were confusing to me. See? I've been feeling pretty balanced lately. Yet, two days after I attended this lecture, when I got a cable bill telling me that I've been late on my payments, and I called to figure out what the hell happened, the call ended with my nose full of snot, my eyes full of tears, and my brain full of red-hot steam.
First, the customer service (CS) agent took almost an hour to break down the charges to me. I’m not as stupid as you might be assuming, even if you know me well and you know accounting/financial stuff makes me nauseous. The CS agent he kept changing the breakdown on me. Simply put, the amounts kept changing and they never added up to what he told me I owed, which was even more than what the bill said I was being charged. When I asked to speak to a CS manager, this manager, to make up for my troubles, offered me the Latin channel or a $10.00 credit on my bill.
“Really, dude? Are you serious? That’s what you got? That’s what you are offering me?” I blurted out. I had some other choice words for this guy, but I’ll save face and leave my response at the aforementioned.
If you’re thinking I was bitchy, you should know that the other CS manager, who helped me later that same day (I ended hanging up on the other CS manger guy; he pissed me off so much), thought that other CS manager was a jack ass for offering me the Latin channel/$10.00 credit. He didn’t say the words “jack” and “ass”, but the ass was firmly implied in his, “That’s ridiculous. I am sorry. That was inappropriate of him.”
Finally, I thought. Someone understands how upsetting it would be for anyone to get the bill I got. Was it my fault that I decided to stay with the same cable carrier and no one informed me that because of transferring a services (phone, TV, and internet) from one address to another I would be required to re-setup my automatic payment on my credit card? Was it my job to inform my own self that my account number would change when the service transferred addresses? How was I to know that my charges weren't being taken out of my account like usual, like the last 10+ years that I’ve been paying on time, and that I would accumulate, in only one month (July 17 through today) $394.01 in service transfer fees, late charges, previous month charges, and next month charges? What an idiot I am. I should have know.
Was I really upset that I owed almost a half of a $1,000.00 in one sweep for a bill? Yes. Of course. But what I was most upset about is how I was treated. After 13 years of service, after keeping and transferring service (in spite of all the problems I’ve had with the service/products), after paying on time for 13 years, and after paying the $394.01 bill, I was treated like a number, like a charge…like I, the customer—the person—didn’t matter.
If I was more balanced, would the cable bill, the lame first CS manager, have been able to knock me off my game so easily? I don’t know. That’s the point.
They say we often teach what we ourselves need to learn. Every blog entry of mine has had some lesson, some thing I’ve learned or needed to learn. Does that mean I’m done, I have it all wired? No. Not one bit. Far from it. But I’m trying wire it.
I’m recognizing that my cable bill situation is a small, small problem next to seeing a guy, the very next day, who is completely paralyzed. I am sure that guy would very much prefer to ‘enjoy’ the difficulty of a shitty cable bill as opposed to some of the difficulties he faces to just get through his day, to just do what we take for granted, like showering, eating, and going to the bathroom.
It shows you how human we are all and how much practice we need to keep growing in the right direction. Shoot, I just blogged about Frank Alioto (who became paralyzed on his wedding night) how long ago? Yet, I forgot (we all forget) the blessings in life so easily. It happens when the day-to-day of a job we’re not pleased with bogs us down. It happens when we get caught up in late cable bills, stuck in slow traffic, or get carried away by situations with people or things. We lose our perspective.
Then, hopefully, we are reminded that we need to remember that every situation (every problem) is here to teach us something. Our challenge is to ask: What am I to learn from this? (Thanks, Ava, for being the messenger of that reminder again today.)
I’m guessing that’s what the instructor meant by saying, “Enjoy your problems.”
Last Tuesday I went to a lecture at a Gnostic Institute where lectures and meditations are offered to the public on a donation basis. It was at this institute of Universal Esoteric Studies, which is "dedicated to revealing a Sacred Path that exists at the heart of all the world's Wisdom teachings," where I heard the instructor, a Spaniard man of modest stature, say, "Enjoy your problems." He said this during the course of a lecture that was all about how to solve problems. He also said, "Today's problems are tomorrow's solutions.
Sometimes it doesn't feel that way, though, does it? How could enjoying ones problems ever be a possibility, right? Because sometimes, when we're in the middle of a problem, small or big, it feels like the world can F' off and so can the guy driving his car too slow in front of us, or the chick in the grocery store who has 30 items in the 15-or-less line. But, as the instructor pointed out, if we're getting angry at something small, shouldn't we be asking: What has gotten us, our perception of life, so off balance that an inept customer service manager for our cable service can send us to tears?
Okay, so that scenario was very specific to me, and I know most people wouldn't cry over their cable bill, but I did, and my reactive tears were confusing to me. See? I've been feeling pretty balanced lately. Yet, two days after I attended this lecture, when I got a cable bill telling me that I've been late on my payments, and I called to figure out what the hell happened, the call ended with my nose full of snot, my eyes full of tears, and my brain full of red-hot steam.
First, the customer service (CS) agent took almost an hour to break down the charges to me. I’m not as stupid as you might be assuming, even if you know me well and you know accounting/financial stuff makes me nauseous. The CS agent he kept changing the breakdown on me. Simply put, the amounts kept changing and they never added up to what he told me I owed, which was even more than what the bill said I was being charged. When I asked to speak to a CS manager, this manager, to make up for my troubles, offered me the Latin channel or a $10.00 credit on my bill.
“Really, dude? Are you serious? That’s what you got? That’s what you are offering me?” I blurted out. I had some other choice words for this guy, but I’ll save face and leave my response at the aforementioned.
If you’re thinking I was bitchy, you should know that the other CS manager, who helped me later that same day (I ended hanging up on the other CS manger guy; he pissed me off so much), thought that other CS manager was a jack ass for offering me the Latin channel/$10.00 credit. He didn’t say the words “jack” and “ass”, but the ass was firmly implied in his, “That’s ridiculous. I am sorry. That was inappropriate of him.”
Finally, I thought. Someone understands how upsetting it would be for anyone to get the bill I got. Was it my fault that I decided to stay with the same cable carrier and no one informed me that because of transferring a services (phone, TV, and internet) from one address to another I would be required to re-setup my automatic payment on my credit card? Was it my job to inform my own self that my account number would change when the service transferred addresses? How was I to know that my charges weren't being taken out of my account like usual, like the last 10+ years that I’ve been paying on time, and that I would accumulate, in only one month (July 17 through today) $394.01 in service transfer fees, late charges, previous month charges, and next month charges? What an idiot I am. I should have know.
Was I really upset that I owed almost a half of a $1,000.00 in one sweep for a bill? Yes. Of course. But what I was most upset about is how I was treated. After 13 years of service, after keeping and transferring service (in spite of all the problems I’ve had with the service/products), after paying on time for 13 years, and after paying the $394.01 bill, I was treated like a number, like a charge…like I, the customer—the person—didn’t matter.
If I was more balanced, would the cable bill, the lame first CS manager, have been able to knock me off my game so easily? I don’t know. That’s the point.
They say we often teach what we ourselves need to learn. Every blog entry of mine has had some lesson, some thing I’ve learned or needed to learn. Does that mean I’m done, I have it all wired? No. Not one bit. Far from it. But I’m trying wire it.
I’m recognizing that my cable bill situation is a small, small problem next to seeing a guy, the very next day, who is completely paralyzed. I am sure that guy would very much prefer to ‘enjoy’ the difficulty of a shitty cable bill as opposed to some of the difficulties he faces to just get through his day, to just do what we take for granted, like showering, eating, and going to the bathroom.
It shows you how human we are all and how much practice we need to keep growing in the right direction. Shoot, I just blogged about Frank Alioto (who became paralyzed on his wedding night) how long ago? Yet, I forgot (we all forget) the blessings in life so easily. It happens when the day-to-day of a job we’re not pleased with bogs us down. It happens when we get caught up in late cable bills, stuck in slow traffic, or get carried away by situations with people or things. We lose our perspective.
Then, hopefully, we are reminded that we need to remember that every situation (every problem) is here to teach us something. Our challenge is to ask: What am I to learn from this? (Thanks, Ava, for being the messenger of that reminder again today.)
I’m guessing that’s what the instructor meant by saying, “Enjoy your problems.”
Time is relative
I was missing Watt the other night, and again tonight, and mad at myself for it, and something dawned on me. As I tried to remind myself why I stopped dating such a great guy, and then remembered Watt wasn't where I was at in life, which is why I'd might the right choice to end things, I remembered that the choice to break things off, as hard as it was, was also a very easy choice at the time.
Once you've gotten to that point in life where you love yourself as much as you should, where you realize your true value, you're unwilling to settle for anyone who can't, won't, or doesn't love and value you just as much. Again, Watt knew my value, but he wasn't in a place to show me that.
So, I'm feel'n this being 40 is fabulous thing again. I'm feeling fortunate that I have gotten to this place where I almost don't have a choice. I spent enough of my younger years where I loved myself less, and allowed others to love me as little, that the wisdom age has brought me can no longer afford that kind of misfortune.
Another thought has recently hit me. While I still feel like I am going to meet someone, very soon, it wouldn't matter if I didn't meet them as soon as I think I will. I know I'll meet someone when the time is right. And, whether that happens sooner or later, I'll still get to spend at least 40 years with this person, probably even more years if I keep eating as healthy as I do. Plus, I always thought I'd live to be 95 or 96. So, if I met someone this year, that's 55-56 years I'll get to spend with them.
The point? Age really does rock. I would have never had this perspective years ago. I would have never thought about how my cup runeth over or about how much time time I'll have with the right guy when I meet him. I would have been too busy thinking about how much time had passed without him. If 40 has been my lifetime, and I am going to get to spend at least that much time with my best friend, that's amazing.
Anyway, go age! It's fabulous.
Once you've gotten to that point in life where you love yourself as much as you should, where you realize your true value, you're unwilling to settle for anyone who can't, won't, or doesn't love and value you just as much. Again, Watt knew my value, but he wasn't in a place to show me that.
So, I'm feel'n this being 40 is fabulous thing again. I'm feeling fortunate that I have gotten to this place where I almost don't have a choice. I spent enough of my younger years where I loved myself less, and allowed others to love me as little, that the wisdom age has brought me can no longer afford that kind of misfortune.
Another thought has recently hit me. While I still feel like I am going to meet someone, very soon, it wouldn't matter if I didn't meet them as soon as I think I will. I know I'll meet someone when the time is right. And, whether that happens sooner or later, I'll still get to spend at least 40 years with this person, probably even more years if I keep eating as healthy as I do. Plus, I always thought I'd live to be 95 or 96. So, if I met someone this year, that's 55-56 years I'll get to spend with them.
The point? Age really does rock. I would have never had this perspective years ago. I would have never thought about how my cup runeth over or about how much time time I'll have with the right guy when I meet him. I would have been too busy thinking about how much time had passed without him. If 40 has been my lifetime, and I am going to get to spend at least that much time with my best friend, that's amazing.
Anyway, go age! It's fabulous.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Random, coincidence, or divine?
I was on a run this morning, and while I was stopped at and waiting for a light to turn green so I could cross over a major street and continue on my run path, this guy who appeared to have just arrived and to be waiting for the same light asked me a question, “Do you eat grapes and green onions?
While the tall, thin, gray-haired older gentlemen, dressed in exercise clothing and a bike helmet (though he didn’t have a bike with him), looked healthy, and it wouldn’t have been unreasonable for him to discuss fruit or vegetables with me, that isn’t where my brain went.
At first I thought he was going to tell me there was a great sale at the farmers market on grapes and green onions. We weren’t anywhere near the farmers market, but, “Great. Thanks," I was about to say, because my brain couldn’t otherwise comprehend such an out of the blue question from this mild-mannered Kirk Douglas look alike.
Truth be told, his pattern of speech, when he asked the question, was a little odd. Or maybe it was that he was staring intently at me for a long 20 seconds as I’d arrived at the light and looked as though he wanted to talk to me. That’s probably why I thought I’d detected a directed tone and a pointed inquisition.
He asked the question again, “Do you eat grapes, purple seedless grapes, and green onions?” and then said, “Because they’re good for your heart.”
I had to ask, “What made you think to ask me that?” I was curious. Was the guy psychic? Could he have known that I have been running in great part to get off of my high-blood pressure medication?
“I actually have high blood pressure," I told him. Then I waited for him to say, "Oh, yeah. I'm psychic." But he didn't. He said, “Just thought I’d ask." Then he added, “If you eat nuts instead of meat, that’ll help, too. And eat raw English Walnuts with cinnamon.”
I informed him I’d given up eating meat and dairy on a regular basis about a year ago and that I put cinnamon in my fruit smoothies every morning. “Eat the walnuts with the cinnamon and the green onions with the grapes,” he said, “There is something about the combinations that is good for your heart. You'll be able to stop drinking your smoothie in no time.”
"Oh, it's a healthy smoothie," I informed him, and told him the ingredients, just berries, almond milk, and cinnamon." I'd have told him I add hemp seed and cacao on my run days, for extra calories, but what would he care?
Like old men do, when they get stern but gentle, he said, "Alright, keep your smoothie, then. But try the walnuts with the cinnamon."
The light turned green; it was time form me to start running to catch this annoying short light of mine, and as I started off, I said, “Well, gosh. Thanks for the tips.” “You’re welcome,” he said,” and when I looked back, I think he went back from which way he came and did not cross the light I was waiting for, which was weird.
I also thought it was weird that he was wearing the bike helmet yet had no bike. And who starts any conversation with a stranger in the middle of her run with, “Do you eat grapes and green onions?”
I’m going to buy some green onions and some more walnuts today. I am going to eat them in combinations. What’s kinda funny, is that now I’m glad I bought as many grapes a I did at the store yesterday. (I’d oscillated on whether or not I should break up the bag or just buy the whole damn thing.)
I’m just saying, having that guy come out of nowhere and tell me something that could be good for my heart, that was weird, random, very cool and I’m wondering if it was divine. The advice couldn't hurt. When was a grape, green onion, walnut, or a bit of cinnamon ever bad for anyone?
Anyway, I liked it, the advice, how random and out of the blue it was. I've been smiling every since.
While the tall, thin, gray-haired older gentlemen, dressed in exercise clothing and a bike helmet (though he didn’t have a bike with him), looked healthy, and it wouldn’t have been unreasonable for him to discuss fruit or vegetables with me, that isn’t where my brain went.
At first I thought he was going to tell me there was a great sale at the farmers market on grapes and green onions. We weren’t anywhere near the farmers market, but, “Great. Thanks," I was about to say, because my brain couldn’t otherwise comprehend such an out of the blue question from this mild-mannered Kirk Douglas look alike.
Truth be told, his pattern of speech, when he asked the question, was a little odd. Or maybe it was that he was staring intently at me for a long 20 seconds as I’d arrived at the light and looked as though he wanted to talk to me. That’s probably why I thought I’d detected a directed tone and a pointed inquisition.
He asked the question again, “Do you eat grapes, purple seedless grapes, and green onions?” and then said, “Because they’re good for your heart.”
I had to ask, “What made you think to ask me that?” I was curious. Was the guy psychic? Could he have known that I have been running in great part to get off of my high-blood pressure medication?
“I actually have high blood pressure," I told him. Then I waited for him to say, "Oh, yeah. I'm psychic." But he didn't. He said, “Just thought I’d ask." Then he added, “If you eat nuts instead of meat, that’ll help, too. And eat raw English Walnuts with cinnamon.”
I informed him I’d given up eating meat and dairy on a regular basis about a year ago and that I put cinnamon in my fruit smoothies every morning. “Eat the walnuts with the cinnamon and the green onions with the grapes,” he said, “There is something about the combinations that is good for your heart. You'll be able to stop drinking your smoothie in no time.”
"Oh, it's a healthy smoothie," I informed him, and told him the ingredients, just berries, almond milk, and cinnamon." I'd have told him I add hemp seed and cacao on my run days, for extra calories, but what would he care?
Like old men do, when they get stern but gentle, he said, "Alright, keep your smoothie, then. But try the walnuts with the cinnamon."
The light turned green; it was time form me to start running to catch this annoying short light of mine, and as I started off, I said, “Well, gosh. Thanks for the tips.” “You’re welcome,” he said,” and when I looked back, I think he went back from which way he came and did not cross the light I was waiting for, which was weird.
I also thought it was weird that he was wearing the bike helmet yet had no bike. And who starts any conversation with a stranger in the middle of her run with, “Do you eat grapes and green onions?”
I’m going to buy some green onions and some more walnuts today. I am going to eat them in combinations. What’s kinda funny, is that now I’m glad I bought as many grapes a I did at the store yesterday. (I’d oscillated on whether or not I should break up the bag or just buy the whole damn thing.)
I’m just saying, having that guy come out of nowhere and tell me something that could be good for my heart, that was weird, random, very cool and I’m wondering if it was divine. The advice couldn't hurt. When was a grape, green onion, walnut, or a bit of cinnamon ever bad for anyone?
Anyway, I liked it, the advice, how random and out of the blue it was. I've been smiling every since.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Okay, little Miss Sunshine is dead. I killed her today
In my last post, which I wrote a couple of days ago and just posted tonight, when I said I hate noise, all noise (internal and external), I was serious. And, I was all Go Tony Robbins! Basically, I was farting sunshine out of my ass and feeling good.
Today, Friday, after a long week at a job I am still not convinced is for me (I am lying again. I'm ready for the next job.), Miss Sunshine, she's gone right now. Dead.
So, here I am, and now I am talking about how I hate the literal kind of noise. You know how everyone has something that feels like nails on a chalk board to them? Me? My chalk-board nails stuff? It’s noise. I can’t do repetitive noise, like a dripping faucet. I can’t do someone unconsciously tapping nails on a desk, or a boyfriend unconsciously tapping on my leg. I can't do someone else's nervous energy, like the restless leg syndrome people have, where their foot/knee is bobbing up and down under the conference table at a work meeting. I can't do the new up-stair's neighbor's yipping dog barking at me. Yip, yip, yip. Bark, bark, bark. Every time I water my plants, leave the condo, rustle within ear shot of the dog while the dog is peeing outside, the yipping. Even when it is not me, the yipping.
Whatever nervous energy is trapped in me, other people's noise becomes worse, nails-on a chalkboard worse, and it messes with me, BIG TIME. Especially other people’s sounds. I literally feel like it’s my OCD, or my “I can’t friggen stop their noise and I need to get away from that noise as soon as possible” disorder.
What’s the real issue? I don’t want to listen to noisy-throat-guy any more, AT ALL. Frog man, or whatever the f’ I’ve been calling him, is driving me insane. His weird singing, his 10 minutes or longer nail clipping sessions (at least 4x a week), his slurping of soup (almost every day), his humming, his weird singing (I know, I said that, but the singing, F!), his phone calls, his phone ringing, his long conversations on the phone, his speaking in tongues or a different language (I don’t know what the hell he is doing), it’s going to make me lose it. I seriously can’t cope.
The other real issue? The job ain't fer me.
I must be a stress case. That’s it. There is no escaping it. I can Miss Sunshine this all I want, and try to spin this good, but I am obviously stressed, or insane, or both, and incessant noise, Frog man's sounds, they are the kinds of things that tip me over my edge. When these sounds, Frog man's idiosyncrasies, emerge and enter into my airspace, I literally feel like someone has come up and put a freaky, flying, buzzing beetle in my ear. I get noise Heebie-jeebies. I'm all: Get it out! Stop it! Get me away.
Help! No, really, HELP!
I've gotta make more shifts in my life so that a soup-slurping Frog man doesn't raise the hair on my back. I am in for more change while I am trying to realize my dreams. So, bring it on. That's the only sunshine you are going to hear out of me this post, the bring-it-on attitude part.
Sorry, Miss Sunshine. We'll resurrect you later. Miss F' This Shit, she is ready to rumble and ready for more changes.
Ava even said it, in so many words, sometimes you start to care about things that matter more to you and the things that don't work for you, you can't or don't want to do them anymore. I can only take this job as seriously as I need the health benefits. But, beyond that, credits and debits, they are not important to me. I want them to go away.
I've gotta stop stressing over all the other shit at work, though, all the deadlines they are imposing on me, all the white night shit they are expecting out of the new girl. They gotta chillax. (If only I wasn't on a year probation again.)
Bottom line, credits, debits, financial stuff, this job, a job with a Frog man and where I am training financial systems software...NOPE. My eyeballs rolled back in my head as I even wrote those words...words that have to do with numbers and financial stuff and egh!!!!
I am not going to be fulfilled until my life is more authentic.
A good work ethic comes when you are inspired. I am not inspired. I don't want work to be a four letter word anymore. I want it to be a seven letter word: P a s s i o n.
Today, Friday, after a long week at a job I am still not convinced is for me (I am lying again. I'm ready for the next job.), Miss Sunshine, she's gone right now. Dead.
So, here I am, and now I am talking about how I hate the literal kind of noise. You know how everyone has something that feels like nails on a chalk board to them? Me? My chalk-board nails stuff? It’s noise. I can’t do repetitive noise, like a dripping faucet. I can’t do someone unconsciously tapping nails on a desk, or a boyfriend unconsciously tapping on my leg. I can't do someone else's nervous energy, like the restless leg syndrome people have, where their foot/knee is bobbing up and down under the conference table at a work meeting. I can't do the new up-stair's neighbor's yipping dog barking at me. Yip, yip, yip. Bark, bark, bark. Every time I water my plants, leave the condo, rustle within ear shot of the dog while the dog is peeing outside, the yipping. Even when it is not me, the yipping.
Whatever nervous energy is trapped in me, other people's noise becomes worse, nails-on a chalkboard worse, and it messes with me, BIG TIME. Especially other people’s sounds. I literally feel like it’s my OCD, or my “I can’t friggen stop their noise and I need to get away from that noise as soon as possible” disorder.
What’s the real issue? I don’t want to listen to noisy-throat-guy any more, AT ALL. Frog man, or whatever the f’ I’ve been calling him, is driving me insane. His weird singing, his 10 minutes or longer nail clipping sessions (at least 4x a week), his slurping of soup (almost every day), his humming, his weird singing (I know, I said that, but the singing, F!), his phone calls, his phone ringing, his long conversations on the phone, his speaking in tongues or a different language (I don’t know what the hell he is doing), it’s going to make me lose it. I seriously can’t cope.
The other real issue? The job ain't fer me.
I must be a stress case. That’s it. There is no escaping it. I can Miss Sunshine this all I want, and try to spin this good, but I am obviously stressed, or insane, or both, and incessant noise, Frog man's sounds, they are the kinds of things that tip me over my edge. When these sounds, Frog man's idiosyncrasies, emerge and enter into my airspace, I literally feel like someone has come up and put a freaky, flying, buzzing beetle in my ear. I get noise Heebie-jeebies. I'm all: Get it out! Stop it! Get me away.
Help! No, really, HELP!
I've gotta make more shifts in my life so that a soup-slurping Frog man doesn't raise the hair on my back. I am in for more change while I am trying to realize my dreams. So, bring it on. That's the only sunshine you are going to hear out of me this post, the bring-it-on attitude part.
Sorry, Miss Sunshine. We'll resurrect you later. Miss F' This Shit, she is ready to rumble and ready for more changes.
Ava even said it, in so many words, sometimes you start to care about things that matter more to you and the things that don't work for you, you can't or don't want to do them anymore. I can only take this job as seriously as I need the health benefits. But, beyond that, credits and debits, they are not important to me. I want them to go away.
I've gotta stop stressing over all the other shit at work, though, all the deadlines they are imposing on me, all the white night shit they are expecting out of the new girl. They gotta chillax. (If only I wasn't on a year probation again.)
Bottom line, credits, debits, financial stuff, this job, a job with a Frog man and where I am training financial systems software...NOPE. My eyeballs rolled back in my head as I even wrote those words...words that have to do with numbers and financial stuff and egh!!!!
I am not going to be fulfilled until my life is more authentic.
A good work ethic comes when you are inspired. I am not inspired. I don't want work to be a four letter word anymore. I want it to be a seven letter word: P a s s i o n.
Thanks, Kristen and Frank, for the reminder...
About a year ago, sometime last February of 2009, I got an email from someone, from a gal who I was getting emails from every week, but this email was different. Usually, these every-week emails were happy hour invitations. A place, a time, and a new location for where happy hour was going to be each Thursday night for that week would arrive in my in-box.
I never went to the happy hours, as there was always something getting in the way (which was probably just me being a school-night-going-out wimp), and I still haven’t gone to one of these happy hour events. But, I still love to get the emails. Just knowing there is a wonderfully active group out there doing happy together for an hour or more every Thursday night, a group who would welcome me to join in, well, that makes me smile. And, even though I now work even further away from where the group makes their Thursday night hours happy (I’d have to drive in traffic for more than an hour to join the group), I still plan to go one of these days. But, I digress.
I want to share what was different about that email in February last year, and how every once in a while I get an email from this gal, the Happy-Hour coordinator, which is different. We’ll call our happy hour coordinator Thursday. It should be known that Thursday is not just a great gatherer of people for social good. She uses her email powers and distribution list for greater good, too. Thursday has helped kittens find new homes. She’s helped friends find new roommates. And in that February email, Thursday helped a couple in need raise money to redo their home.
Really, re-doing their home? What? That’s what you might be thinking. Why pitch in for new curtains and a couch cover for some strangers? Yeah, not that kind of re-doing their home. The email Thursday sent contained information on a silent-auction fundraiser which was being held for this couple who needed to create a handicap accessible home for the husband who, on their wedding night (just a couple months prior), in celebration of their nuptials had broken his neck upon jumping into a swimming pool.
First, can you imagine that? You are about to start a new life with your mate, with the person—the family—you have chosen (water is about to become thicker than the blood), and not long after you’ve said, “Yes, I DO plan to spend forever with you…for better or for worse,” (whatever worst you imagined was probably just old age 30 extra pounds), worser than worse happens. Never did you think or plan that ‘worse’ meant several surgeries to come and just as many grueling rehabilitation sessions to follow for your mate, just to see if your partner, the love of your life, will have any use of their arms and legs again. Never did you think the trajectory of your life would alter so dramatically that how life was lived before is now so distant, the distance and differences have become painful.
It is un-imaginable, isn’t it? That is just one of the things in life where we think it can only happen to other people. Other people get in car accidents. Other people lose a child. Other people know someone who committed suicide. Other people know someone who was killed. Other people have an accident and become handicapped. Other people experience tragedy.
The truth is that we are the other people when it happens to us. And, it happened to someone who was a friend of someone I knew. I also have two quadriplegic friends, so it happened to them, too. Anything, bad or good, can happen to us. We can be that person who won that million in the lottery, or that person hit by a drunk driver. That’s why I try not to take life, my limbs, my sight, my hearing, my sense of humor, my friends, my family, any of it for granted.
Anyway, I was very moved by the story sent in that silent-auction informational email. So much so, I forwarded on that email to everyone in my contact list and asked all of my contacts to contribute what they could if they could. I wasn’t asking anything I was not going to do. I sent the couple a donation via snail mail. What surprised me, is that one of my friends replied to this forwarded email by telling me that her husband had dated the wife in high school.
Small world, isn’t it? You think you are asking your friends to help out people who are even strangers to you, but those strangers are even closer to those who you love.
In that February email, I learned that the wife, Kristen Alioto, who was connected to Thursday’s friend, my friend’s hubby, and now had a connection to Thursday, all the happy hour folks, and to me and all my friends, had married Frank Alioto in mid December in Mexico. You may be asking why I have, when I rarely do, shared the real names of this couple. I’ve given their true identities because they showed up in my living room. Not actually in person, but on my television. Frank and Kristen Alioto were featured on BREAKTHROUGH with Tony Robbins.
Holy crap! I thought. The minute the show started to navigate through the couple’s story, I knew it had to be the same people I’d learned about more than a year earlier. I had to send Thursday an email, to ask her. Thursday was sure it was them, too, but both of us needed that confirmation from the friend of Thursday’s who had sent Thursday the original request (to send out the silent-auction info) in the first place.
The other day Thursday confirmed that, yes, Kristen and Frank are, indeed, the couple who that February email was for. So now I ask you: Am I the only one who still believes that everything and everyone are connected?
This isn’t my first experience like this, realizing that the people I know are connected to others in ways I would not have guessed. This is not the first time I’ve seen how far away one can go and still run into someone they know or someone who knows who they know. I can remember being in a bar with Emily in New Orleans (pre-Katrina) and meeting a guy who lived in Cocoa Beach, Florida. This guy knew and had played volley ball with my ex-boyfriend (an ex who lived near Cocoa Beach, Florida).
One New Years eve, when I was living in South Lake Tahoe, as I was sandwiched between a big, sweaty guy and a short, bald man, and was being pulled through a squishing-through-room-only crowd on the South Lake Tahoe Casino streets by my best friend and roommate at the time (Jen’s older sister), I ran into two guys I knew from high school. This small-world experience worked out for these guys I’d known from high school especially well. (We’ll call them high school guys 1 & 2.)
See, the 3rd guy in the group (who I did not know) who was with high school guys 1 & 2, he got thrown in jail that night for slapping a cop on his ass. Not a problem for 1 & 2, except this cop-fanny-slapping friend had the key to 1 & 2’s hotel room with him.
Lucky for 1 & 2, Jen’s older sister and I had the room for them to stay with us that night. Lucky for me, I’d always had a crush on high school guy 1, so the room I found was in my bed and I got myself a nice little make-out session that night. Not so lucky, I learned that one session was all I’d want, thanks. (How fast does morning come?)
The connections keep on coming. Another friend of mine, like many of my friends, met her mate on the internet. What’s special about this particular friend’s story is that she dated her hubby’s brother, who she also met on the internet, for just a couple of dates, a year prior. By her second date with hubby-to-be, she realizes that hubby-to-be is the brother of that nice guy she didn’t romantically hit it off with before. (Both hubby-to-be’s brother and this friend of mine had agreed it was more friendly than romantic). This led my friend and her hubby-to-be to figure they were bound to meet somehow.
To me, their story is just awesome. It shows me that the universe was lining up connections for a year trying to make it happen for my friend and her hubby.
So as I was watching that Tony Robbins special, and Tony is doing and saying all those things that make him Tony Robbins, all I can think is about the connectivity of things, even the connectivity of messages. Timing and circumstance can be everything…especially the last piece of the connected puzzle. Imagine how much more open someone might have been to hear the message(s) Tony Robbins was trying to get across because those life messages were coming through Kristen and Frank’s story?
Someone might have heard the same things said a thousand times before, and may have needed to hear those messages a thousand times over, but the message(s) never got in. But then, after listening to Kristen and Frank share their struggles and triumphs, BAM, in it goes. The message is delivered.
It all just makes you think (or, it should).
Frank’s arms and legs don’t work like mine do anymore, but my body, Frank’s body, that’s not where we make the most change in our lives. Change starts in our minds, just as Tony Robbins communicated, and just as I’ve been learning (from every source that will give it to me). That’s why I am convinced, more and more every day, that everything real, everything significant, and everything we need to understand, it isn’t in the physical body, it isn’t in physical things. It’s in the intangible.
It’s in the Now.
It’s in our spirits, in our character, our actions, and in our hearts.
The past cannot be changed. The future is unknown. Therefore tragedy, once accepted, once brought into the Now (rather than what could have been, or what will never be) can become something other than tragedy. I imagine that Frank’s story, his tragedy has inspired millions, millions who aren’t even facing half of what Frank has faced or will face. But those millions needed to see what Frank could overcome to understand that they are capable of overcoming their own hurdles, and that takes away some of the tragedy of Frank’s hardship.
Now we all know I am just as much of a complainer as everyone else. I don’t want to work for a living anymore (unless it means I’m getting paid to write or paint). I hate noise, especially neighbor noise (my new neighbors are just as noisy-F’rs!!!). I’m not getting laid again (still miss Watt). Some people are idiots (I’ve run into some annoying situations lately). But, whatever we think our real issues are, whatever we think is holding us back, be the noise next door, the person under our skin, our weight, our lack of weigh, our limbs (working or not), or whether we don’t think we are handsome/pretty enough, smart enough, any of it, it’s all crap. It’s all noise. The worst kind of noise. (Gawd I hate noise!)
We have to face our true issues. We have to ask ourselves, what’s really going on inside that makes me doubt my true beauty, my own intelligence, and my deepest strengths? What’s making me focus on the clunking hills of the new neighbor upstairs instead of the myriad of other things that are unfolding before me in my life? What’s making me think my ass matters and not my heart?
Why do any of us tell ourselves that we are separate, alone, without resources? We aren’t. If Frank and Kristen’s story (before it was even on TV) can move a stranger, me, to donate when I didn’t have much money to give at the time, why would my small, small act be any different than the bigger acts, the larger picture, the vast connections that are all just waiting to unfold before us when we are open to them?
The answer is: There’s no difference. We have to decide that all things are possible in our lives because all things ARE connected. We need to reach beyond the limitations—the illusions—that have held us back. We need to change our paradigms and let go of whatever negative patterns we’ve slipped into.
Ready?
I am.
I want my life to get more and more fabulous each day, and not because a shiny red car shows up (I don’t even like red cars) or because I get my dream job (paid for writing/painting), or because the man of my dreams delivers hot-loving sex to my front door. I want my life to get more fabulous because I am choosing Now as the place to be the happiest…no matter where I’ve come from or where I am going.
I think it is more than possible to be happy with whatever we have Now once we realize that we are not alone.
BTW, I fully realize that I repeat myself a lot in all of my blog posts (connections this, Now that, bigger picture here, go-get’m there, and so on and so forth), but let me ask: Wouldn’t anyone rather repeat to themselves and to other, and practice (over and over) believing and communicating, the good things in life, that is as opposed to being the broken record who plays a crappy song over and over?
Yeah, me too.
So thanks, Kristen and Frank, for the reminder that I don't have much to complain about and for the inspiration to reach higher.
I never went to the happy hours, as there was always something getting in the way (which was probably just me being a school-night-going-out wimp), and I still haven’t gone to one of these happy hour events. But, I still love to get the emails. Just knowing there is a wonderfully active group out there doing happy together for an hour or more every Thursday night, a group who would welcome me to join in, well, that makes me smile. And, even though I now work even further away from where the group makes their Thursday night hours happy (I’d have to drive in traffic for more than an hour to join the group), I still plan to go one of these days. But, I digress.
I want to share what was different about that email in February last year, and how every once in a while I get an email from this gal, the Happy-Hour coordinator, which is different. We’ll call our happy hour coordinator Thursday. It should be known that Thursday is not just a great gatherer of people for social good. She uses her email powers and distribution list for greater good, too. Thursday has helped kittens find new homes. She’s helped friends find new roommates. And in that February email, Thursday helped a couple in need raise money to redo their home.
Really, re-doing their home? What? That’s what you might be thinking. Why pitch in for new curtains and a couch cover for some strangers? Yeah, not that kind of re-doing their home. The email Thursday sent contained information on a silent-auction fundraiser which was being held for this couple who needed to create a handicap accessible home for the husband who, on their wedding night (just a couple months prior), in celebration of their nuptials had broken his neck upon jumping into a swimming pool.
First, can you imagine that? You are about to start a new life with your mate, with the person—the family—you have chosen (water is about to become thicker than the blood), and not long after you’ve said, “Yes, I DO plan to spend forever with you…for better or for worse,” (whatever worst you imagined was probably just old age 30 extra pounds), worser than worse happens. Never did you think or plan that ‘worse’ meant several surgeries to come and just as many grueling rehabilitation sessions to follow for your mate, just to see if your partner, the love of your life, will have any use of their arms and legs again. Never did you think the trajectory of your life would alter so dramatically that how life was lived before is now so distant, the distance and differences have become painful.
It is un-imaginable, isn’t it? That is just one of the things in life where we think it can only happen to other people. Other people get in car accidents. Other people lose a child. Other people know someone who committed suicide. Other people know someone who was killed. Other people have an accident and become handicapped. Other people experience tragedy.
The truth is that we are the other people when it happens to us. And, it happened to someone who was a friend of someone I knew. I also have two quadriplegic friends, so it happened to them, too. Anything, bad or good, can happen to us. We can be that person who won that million in the lottery, or that person hit by a drunk driver. That’s why I try not to take life, my limbs, my sight, my hearing, my sense of humor, my friends, my family, any of it for granted.
Anyway, I was very moved by the story sent in that silent-auction informational email. So much so, I forwarded on that email to everyone in my contact list and asked all of my contacts to contribute what they could if they could. I wasn’t asking anything I was not going to do. I sent the couple a donation via snail mail. What surprised me, is that one of my friends replied to this forwarded email by telling me that her husband had dated the wife in high school.
Small world, isn’t it? You think you are asking your friends to help out people who are even strangers to you, but those strangers are even closer to those who you love.
In that February email, I learned that the wife, Kristen Alioto, who was connected to Thursday’s friend, my friend’s hubby, and now had a connection to Thursday, all the happy hour folks, and to me and all my friends, had married Frank Alioto in mid December in Mexico. You may be asking why I have, when I rarely do, shared the real names of this couple. I’ve given their true identities because they showed up in my living room. Not actually in person, but on my television. Frank and Kristen Alioto were featured on BREAKTHROUGH with Tony Robbins.
Holy crap! I thought. The minute the show started to navigate through the couple’s story, I knew it had to be the same people I’d learned about more than a year earlier. I had to send Thursday an email, to ask her. Thursday was sure it was them, too, but both of us needed that confirmation from the friend of Thursday’s who had sent Thursday the original request (to send out the silent-auction info) in the first place.
The other day Thursday confirmed that, yes, Kristen and Frank are, indeed, the couple who that February email was for. So now I ask you: Am I the only one who still believes that everything and everyone are connected?
This isn’t my first experience like this, realizing that the people I know are connected to others in ways I would not have guessed. This is not the first time I’ve seen how far away one can go and still run into someone they know or someone who knows who they know. I can remember being in a bar with Emily in New Orleans (pre-Katrina) and meeting a guy who lived in Cocoa Beach, Florida. This guy knew and had played volley ball with my ex-boyfriend (an ex who lived near Cocoa Beach, Florida).
One New Years eve, when I was living in South Lake Tahoe, as I was sandwiched between a big, sweaty guy and a short, bald man, and was being pulled through a squishing-through-room-only crowd on the South Lake Tahoe Casino streets by my best friend and roommate at the time (Jen’s older sister), I ran into two guys I knew from high school. This small-world experience worked out for these guys I’d known from high school especially well. (We’ll call them high school guys 1 & 2.)
See, the 3rd guy in the group (who I did not know) who was with high school guys 1 & 2, he got thrown in jail that night for slapping a cop on his ass. Not a problem for 1 & 2, except this cop-fanny-slapping friend had the key to 1 & 2’s hotel room with him.
Lucky for 1 & 2, Jen’s older sister and I had the room for them to stay with us that night. Lucky for me, I’d always had a crush on high school guy 1, so the room I found was in my bed and I got myself a nice little make-out session that night. Not so lucky, I learned that one session was all I’d want, thanks. (How fast does morning come?)
The connections keep on coming. Another friend of mine, like many of my friends, met her mate on the internet. What’s special about this particular friend’s story is that she dated her hubby’s brother, who she also met on the internet, for just a couple of dates, a year prior. By her second date with hubby-to-be, she realizes that hubby-to-be is the brother of that nice guy she didn’t romantically hit it off with before. (Both hubby-to-be’s brother and this friend of mine had agreed it was more friendly than romantic). This led my friend and her hubby-to-be to figure they were bound to meet somehow.
To me, their story is just awesome. It shows me that the universe was lining up connections for a year trying to make it happen for my friend and her hubby.
So as I was watching that Tony Robbins special, and Tony is doing and saying all those things that make him Tony Robbins, all I can think is about the connectivity of things, even the connectivity of messages. Timing and circumstance can be everything…especially the last piece of the connected puzzle. Imagine how much more open someone might have been to hear the message(s) Tony Robbins was trying to get across because those life messages were coming through Kristen and Frank’s story?
Someone might have heard the same things said a thousand times before, and may have needed to hear those messages a thousand times over, but the message(s) never got in. But then, after listening to Kristen and Frank share their struggles and triumphs, BAM, in it goes. The message is delivered.
It all just makes you think (or, it should).
Frank’s arms and legs don’t work like mine do anymore, but my body, Frank’s body, that’s not where we make the most change in our lives. Change starts in our minds, just as Tony Robbins communicated, and just as I’ve been learning (from every source that will give it to me). That’s why I am convinced, more and more every day, that everything real, everything significant, and everything we need to understand, it isn’t in the physical body, it isn’t in physical things. It’s in the intangible.
It’s in the Now.
It’s in our spirits, in our character, our actions, and in our hearts.
The past cannot be changed. The future is unknown. Therefore tragedy, once accepted, once brought into the Now (rather than what could have been, or what will never be) can become something other than tragedy. I imagine that Frank’s story, his tragedy has inspired millions, millions who aren’t even facing half of what Frank has faced or will face. But those millions needed to see what Frank could overcome to understand that they are capable of overcoming their own hurdles, and that takes away some of the tragedy of Frank’s hardship.
Now we all know I am just as much of a complainer as everyone else. I don’t want to work for a living anymore (unless it means I’m getting paid to write or paint). I hate noise, especially neighbor noise (my new neighbors are just as noisy-F’rs!!!). I’m not getting laid again (still miss Watt). Some people are idiots (I’ve run into some annoying situations lately). But, whatever we think our real issues are, whatever we think is holding us back, be the noise next door, the person under our skin, our weight, our lack of weigh, our limbs (working or not), or whether we don’t think we are handsome/pretty enough, smart enough, any of it, it’s all crap. It’s all noise. The worst kind of noise. (Gawd I hate noise!)
We have to face our true issues. We have to ask ourselves, what’s really going on inside that makes me doubt my true beauty, my own intelligence, and my deepest strengths? What’s making me focus on the clunking hills of the new neighbor upstairs instead of the myriad of other things that are unfolding before me in my life? What’s making me think my ass matters and not my heart?
Why do any of us tell ourselves that we are separate, alone, without resources? We aren’t. If Frank and Kristen’s story (before it was even on TV) can move a stranger, me, to donate when I didn’t have much money to give at the time, why would my small, small act be any different than the bigger acts, the larger picture, the vast connections that are all just waiting to unfold before us when we are open to them?
The answer is: There’s no difference. We have to decide that all things are possible in our lives because all things ARE connected. We need to reach beyond the limitations—the illusions—that have held us back. We need to change our paradigms and let go of whatever negative patterns we’ve slipped into.
Ready?
I am.
I want my life to get more and more fabulous each day, and not because a shiny red car shows up (I don’t even like red cars) or because I get my dream job (paid for writing/painting), or because the man of my dreams delivers hot-loving sex to my front door. I want my life to get more fabulous because I am choosing Now as the place to be the happiest…no matter where I’ve come from or where I am going.
I think it is more than possible to be happy with whatever we have Now once we realize that we are not alone.
BTW, I fully realize that I repeat myself a lot in all of my blog posts (connections this, Now that, bigger picture here, go-get’m there, and so on and so forth), but let me ask: Wouldn’t anyone rather repeat to themselves and to other, and practice (over and over) believing and communicating, the good things in life, that is as opposed to being the broken record who plays a crappy song over and over?
Yeah, me too.
So thanks, Kristen and Frank, for the reminder that I don't have much to complain about and for the inspiration to reach higher.
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