Today I had an appointment for U-haul to wire me up. Translation? I needed to get the Remote Power Vehicle Towing installation taken care of so I’ve got me some legal stop-and-go lights on the 5’-8” U-Haul trailer my little SUV will be pulling to Colorado. While I was waiting to get wired, I decided to hop over to the storage place where I am going to be leaving 95% of my possessions. I wanted to settle up my reservation.
Thankfully I am a follow up girl. My reservation had been lost. Eh, no big deal. I’m moving in on a day where the office won’t be open. I almost didn’t get the original quote/price they gave me. I was never informed about how the monthly rent will hike after the intro offer. The girl trying to re-do my reservation botched up my information three times. And, they doubled the penalty if I end my storage unit lease early. But, hey, this is just my life I’m putting in storage. No worries here. They fixed the charges, all ended up well, and that part of my day, getting wires and settling my storage, only took me close to three unsettling hours to settle. Who says packing up your life is stressful. This is a cinch. (Sigh.)
I didn’t feel any stress after that when I went home and continued with my private health insurance shopping. Why should it bother me that, because of my existing conditions, the High blood pressure and the hypothyroidism, I could be denied or be charged out the wazoo? If I wasn’t so afraid of the semantics of health insurance I would have ditched my job a long time ago. Again, easy. (Sigh.)
I guess what I am trying to say is that I may have gotten some balls back in deciding to write my life in pen, but I never said dragging around these new big balls would be easy breezy all the time and today was a toughy.
It’s all still worth it, though, and I will tell you why. When you call up the best friend you are about to move in with and tell her about your difficult day, while she gets interrupted on the phone by one of her daughters, but still, minutes later, texts you and says, “Don’t worry too much. I know you have always been on your own, but you have to remember that I’ve got your back, always. I won’t let you fall,” that's when you know you are doing the right thing.
Guess how Jen signed the text? She signed it Gayle. If that doesn’t make sense, let me explain. Jen and I both record the Oprah show. We had also both started to watch the episode about best friends, about Gayle and Oprah’s friendship, when Jen decided to text me and see if I’d seen it. I was watching it at that moment and that’s when I called her to tell her about my day.
There’s really nothing more I need to say about that.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Get Out of Jail Free card
Wikipedia defines “A Get Out of Jail Free card” as an element of the board game Monopoly which has become a popular metaphor for something that will get one out of an undesired situation.
Heard that!
Backing up, but only every so slightly, what I didn't say in my last post is that I’ve quit my job. They don’t know it yet, and I was afraid to come straight out with it in the previous “…write my life in pen..” blog post, because the responsible me thought if I wrote it outright, and somehow "the man" (my work) figured it out, that at the end of my medical leave I’ll be resigning my position, I'd be screwed.
Jo, my neighbor, helped me change my mind. She said something like, “Nah, they can’t touch you. You’re doing it by the book. Relax. Enjoy this.”
So, here is the correction: I’ve been screwed in that job. Now, that I’ve quit? Not so much. And that, my friends, is how you reshuffle life’s Monopoly deck and put the Get Out of Jail Free card on top.
There hasn’t been one day since I’ve made this decision, to store the life I’ve been living and start living another way, that I thought it was the wrong decision to make. Now, the packing, the getting together all the administrative details that are involved with moving one’s life from one state to another, oh that can take a flying flip.
Everything else involved with this decision, where this bold move feels like my own, cool, 1980s movie moment, is gelling quit nicely in my psyche. Err, wait... is it a Jerry Maguire moment that every one has now? Am I the crazy guy, like Jerry Maguire, who walks off his job with a new mission and takes the fish with him? (Go crazy! Get the fish!)
Whatever this is, I'm it. I’m picking me, sane or crazy. I have to admit, though, while there have been a lot of shitty jobs leading up to this last one, which have stacked themselves on top of life circumstances that have been culminating over the years, a more acute chain of events lead to my snapping point the day I quietly walked off the job.
The Wednesday after my father’s quadruple bypass surgery, shortly after I got called into that aforementioned, berating and impromptu meeting with Bitch #1 and the New Boss Man, is when I made my exit.
Minutes after that meeting, I had gone outside to call my sister, Lyn. I wanted to know how my father was doing. I wanted to know if they’d removed his breathing tube yet and if he was well enough to be transported out of the intensive critical care unit and into a regular room.
My sister, not comfortable with the sound of my voice asked, “You okay?” “Not really,” I said.
“Are you worried about dad?” “Yes,” I said, “But it’s not just that.”
“Is it your job again?” she asked. I didn’t answer, I just started crying.
“You need to get the hell out of there,” my sister ordered me. “Call your doctor. Get the medical leave note. Just get out of there. I can’t watch what this place is doing to you anymore. You need to move in with Jen like you’ve been talking about and finish your book and become your old self again.”
Up until that point, my sister has been standing back, watching and accepting my choices as I have continued to live the life of my making that hasn’t made me happy. Then, that Wednesday, when I was ready not to live that life any more, but, because I’d been so beaten down by my work, and had so much fear piled up in my life, and my sister knew I’d essentially become paralyzed, my big sister did what a big sister does. She basically ordered me to change my life. I’d needed that.
Immediately after I got off the phone with Lyn I called my doctor and got an appointment for 5:15 pm later that day. Then, I went back in for round 1 of my desk clearing. As I sat there in my uncomfortable office chair, surrounded by stacked paper and project binder piles, I asked myself What do I really need? I didn’t need anything, but I didn’t want any personal part of me to be left behind in that cube, so I took down the few pictures I had: The picture of me with my sister Lyn and all my friends on my 40th birthday and the shot of the Eiffel tower I took while I was on a European tour with my mom.
Then I went outside to call one of the few co-workers I’d become close with, a co-worker I’d made a promise to. She answered her cell after two rings. “Remember I told you that if I was ever to leave this place you’d be the first to know?” I asked. “Yes,” she said, tentatively.
“Well, you are the first to know. I’m leaving at lunch and I am not coming back.”
She wasn’t shocked. She’d known how they’d been treating everyone in the current budget climate. None of us could prove we were being used, abused, and harassed, or that some of us were slated for possible lay offs and being documented out. But, whether a theory is in play or is not, if all the components of that theory are in practice, and you are in a shitty situation, it doesn’t matter what the origin is. Shit is still shit no matter where the shit comes from, right?
Next I called my dear Ava, the one who has truly been a savior to me at work. Were it not for all of our walks under our trees, and all of our talks blowing off steam, I might not have kept what little sanity has remained. I can’t even remember my conversation with Ava. I just remember hanging up the phone and feeling a sense of calm, knowing Ava would always be in my life, she would always be a part of my spiritual sanity, reminding me that everything happens for a reason, and she would always be a friend, a true one.
What I hadn’t noticed, while I was outside on the phone with Ava, is that, because of a peaceable protest that was about to start, the entire building I worked in had gone on lock-down to keep the staff inside safe. Poetic I thought. Every entry/exit is now gated with bars and manned with a policeman. I feel like I am trying to break into Jail to get the remainder of my belongings from my desk and to get myself out of hell.
Turns out, clearing the rest of my desk was easy. I took one last look around, grabbed my personal work file, which had all my benefits information, performance reviews, and offer letters from both divisions in it, and I didn’t want anything else. I didn’t want that file, either, but I knew it would be necessary. Then, I left my desk exactly as it would be if I were returning after lunch, with the computer on and the work piles stacked about.
The same policeman, who questioned my employee status, just 20 minutes before to let me back into the building, informed me that I would need to show my staff ID if I wanted to re-enter the building. While he unlocked the barred gate to let me out, I said, “I won’t need my ID. I’m never coming back to this place again.”
Then, I thought: Damn. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. They might think I’ve set off a bomb or something related to the protest and radio a cop to stop me in the parking lot.
But, aside from the one other person I told I was leaving, the guy in the office across from my cube, someone who is one of the most mild mannered and incredibly decent human beings on the face of the earth, no one seemed to care that the girl who was brought to tears from work 2-3 nights a week was leaving the building. Nope. With the exception of Ava, and a precious few other co-workers I’ve cherished, all the people who cared about me were on the other side of those bars.
All along all the people who have cared about me have been there, on the other end of phone lines, across restaurant dining tables, and in my living room or in theirs. So I called one of my ‘cares about me’ friends, Lyta. (You may recall Lyta, who, along with Jo, was a big part of getting me through the panic attack I wrote about in the post “Surrender” dated: Thursday, December 16, 2010.)
Don’t worry. Leaving the job didn’t spur another panic attack, quite the opposite. But, I did need to share my decision with someone. For two hours Lyta and I discussed how necessary the life adjustments I was beginning to make have been.
After my doctor’s appointment, I went to my neighbor Jo’s place to also share my news. Jo’s response was: “Good for you!” Jo has been there on so many days I’ve come home from work totally affected by the day and by the people.
(BTW, if you are trying to figure out who the hell Jo is, Jo is Jean, also from the December 16th “Surrender” post. Jo, however, thought the name Jean sucked. So, “Jo” it is. She’s right. Jo does fit her better. If I am going to choose a name that protects a friend’s identify/privacy, I’m all for them having a hand in it.
Anyway, since leaving work that Wednesday, I haven’t been back. I have had some stressed days, but not because I am questioning my decision. I don’t. Not one bit. But, responsible me, who knows that at the end of this medical leave I will need health insurance and a new less-stressful source of income, does need to have her voice heard. She needs to call attention to the fact that the stars need to continue to line up.
This is what I have to say to responsible me: The stars will align. Have faith. I’m already living more fully in my Now. Isn’t that as it should be?
I like Now. It’s a great place. The other day, when Jo was helping me with the mechanic drop off/pick up, to get my car road-ready for my long-haul move, we did a lot of asking: What would be fun Now?
First, getting a beer and splitting a burger at the 49er, a local dive bar famous for its legendary burgers, was fun. Next, hitting up another local institution, that was going to be fun.
So, we hopped over to Jo Josts, one of Long Beach’s oldest bars which used to be a barber shop. While we didn’t have one of the special pickled eggs Jo Josts is known for, we each did have a beer. Jo bought me a Jo Josts T-shirt. Now, I can take a little bit of the city I’ve lived in for the last 14 years with me. I’ll tell people Jo Josts is famous for serving up the coldest beer in Long Beach.
As you can see, and as it turns out, were this blog is concerned, I am not gone and I won’t be. I think I am going to need to keep up on posting this adventure I’ve started.
I will also need to keep up on this writing venue, this blog, a venue which has given me the freedom to not need to be perfect. This blog has taught me that I have something to share and until I get an editor, the occasional repeated word, where I start a sentence then rearrange my thought, that’s okay. When I get my editor for my book, the intermittent inscrutable series of words will disappear. Until then, I am just going to continue to do what I know how to do: Share my self and my voice.
Oh, since I am throwing all my shit in storage, and just bringing my bed, ¼ of my clothes, and my painting and writing supplies, I’m also bringing my beach cruiser. I don’t care if that’s impractical or if the side of my bike has a logo that reads: Point Beach when I am headed to the mountains. I am not moving to Colorado forever. I am starting my adventure there.
My bike is my Jerry Maguire office fish. I am starting a new life and the damn bike is coming with me. (I’m taking the fish.) I’m already imagining myself on my bike, ringing my bike bell, and getting looks from the neighbors wondering who the damn blondie is with the ridiculous California beach cruiser.
When I come back to get my stuff out of Long Beach storage, my plan is that it will be because my book is being published, or I am getting married, or I can afford to buy real estate (or all three).
If all of those plans work out, great. If other plans take me somewhere else, great, too. My only real plan is to never work so hard at doing something that I don’t love for people who don’t care about me again.
Life shouldn’t feel like a jail cell. It should feel fabulous, free, and without fear, and right now it does.
Heard that!
Backing up, but only every so slightly, what I didn't say in my last post is that I’ve quit my job. They don’t know it yet, and I was afraid to come straight out with it in the previous “…write my life in pen..” blog post, because the responsible me thought if I wrote it outright, and somehow "the man" (my work) figured it out, that at the end of my medical leave I’ll be resigning my position, I'd be screwed.
Jo, my neighbor, helped me change my mind. She said something like, “Nah, they can’t touch you. You’re doing it by the book. Relax. Enjoy this.”
So, here is the correction: I’ve been screwed in that job. Now, that I’ve quit? Not so much. And that, my friends, is how you reshuffle life’s Monopoly deck and put the Get Out of Jail Free card on top.
There hasn’t been one day since I’ve made this decision, to store the life I’ve been living and start living another way, that I thought it was the wrong decision to make. Now, the packing, the getting together all the administrative details that are involved with moving one’s life from one state to another, oh that can take a flying flip.
Everything else involved with this decision, where this bold move feels like my own, cool, 1980s movie moment, is gelling quit nicely in my psyche. Err, wait... is it a Jerry Maguire moment that every one has now? Am I the crazy guy, like Jerry Maguire, who walks off his job with a new mission and takes the fish with him? (Go crazy! Get the fish!)
Whatever this is, I'm it. I’m picking me, sane or crazy. I have to admit, though, while there have been a lot of shitty jobs leading up to this last one, which have stacked themselves on top of life circumstances that have been culminating over the years, a more acute chain of events lead to my snapping point the day I quietly walked off the job.
The Wednesday after my father’s quadruple bypass surgery, shortly after I got called into that aforementioned, berating and impromptu meeting with Bitch #1 and the New Boss Man, is when I made my exit.
Minutes after that meeting, I had gone outside to call my sister, Lyn. I wanted to know how my father was doing. I wanted to know if they’d removed his breathing tube yet and if he was well enough to be transported out of the intensive critical care unit and into a regular room.
My sister, not comfortable with the sound of my voice asked, “You okay?” “Not really,” I said.
“Are you worried about dad?” “Yes,” I said, “But it’s not just that.”
“Is it your job again?” she asked. I didn’t answer, I just started crying.
“You need to get the hell out of there,” my sister ordered me. “Call your doctor. Get the medical leave note. Just get out of there. I can’t watch what this place is doing to you anymore. You need to move in with Jen like you’ve been talking about and finish your book and become your old self again.”
Up until that point, my sister has been standing back, watching and accepting my choices as I have continued to live the life of my making that hasn’t made me happy. Then, that Wednesday, when I was ready not to live that life any more, but, because I’d been so beaten down by my work, and had so much fear piled up in my life, and my sister knew I’d essentially become paralyzed, my big sister did what a big sister does. She basically ordered me to change my life. I’d needed that.
Immediately after I got off the phone with Lyn I called my doctor and got an appointment for 5:15 pm later that day. Then, I went back in for round 1 of my desk clearing. As I sat there in my uncomfortable office chair, surrounded by stacked paper and project binder piles, I asked myself What do I really need? I didn’t need anything, but I didn’t want any personal part of me to be left behind in that cube, so I took down the few pictures I had: The picture of me with my sister Lyn and all my friends on my 40th birthday and the shot of the Eiffel tower I took while I was on a European tour with my mom.
Then I went outside to call one of the few co-workers I’d become close with, a co-worker I’d made a promise to. She answered her cell after two rings. “Remember I told you that if I was ever to leave this place you’d be the first to know?” I asked. “Yes,” she said, tentatively.
“Well, you are the first to know. I’m leaving at lunch and I am not coming back.”
She wasn’t shocked. She’d known how they’d been treating everyone in the current budget climate. None of us could prove we were being used, abused, and harassed, or that some of us were slated for possible lay offs and being documented out. But, whether a theory is in play or is not, if all the components of that theory are in practice, and you are in a shitty situation, it doesn’t matter what the origin is. Shit is still shit no matter where the shit comes from, right?
Next I called my dear Ava, the one who has truly been a savior to me at work. Were it not for all of our walks under our trees, and all of our talks blowing off steam, I might not have kept what little sanity has remained. I can’t even remember my conversation with Ava. I just remember hanging up the phone and feeling a sense of calm, knowing Ava would always be in my life, she would always be a part of my spiritual sanity, reminding me that everything happens for a reason, and she would always be a friend, a true one.
What I hadn’t noticed, while I was outside on the phone with Ava, is that, because of a peaceable protest that was about to start, the entire building I worked in had gone on lock-down to keep the staff inside safe. Poetic I thought. Every entry/exit is now gated with bars and manned with a policeman. I feel like I am trying to break into Jail to get the remainder of my belongings from my desk and to get myself out of hell.
Turns out, clearing the rest of my desk was easy. I took one last look around, grabbed my personal work file, which had all my benefits information, performance reviews, and offer letters from both divisions in it, and I didn’t want anything else. I didn’t want that file, either, but I knew it would be necessary. Then, I left my desk exactly as it would be if I were returning after lunch, with the computer on and the work piles stacked about.
The same policeman, who questioned my employee status, just 20 minutes before to let me back into the building, informed me that I would need to show my staff ID if I wanted to re-enter the building. While he unlocked the barred gate to let me out, I said, “I won’t need my ID. I’m never coming back to this place again.”
Then, I thought: Damn. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. They might think I’ve set off a bomb or something related to the protest and radio a cop to stop me in the parking lot.
But, aside from the one other person I told I was leaving, the guy in the office across from my cube, someone who is one of the most mild mannered and incredibly decent human beings on the face of the earth, no one seemed to care that the girl who was brought to tears from work 2-3 nights a week was leaving the building. Nope. With the exception of Ava, and a precious few other co-workers I’ve cherished, all the people who cared about me were on the other side of those bars.
All along all the people who have cared about me have been there, on the other end of phone lines, across restaurant dining tables, and in my living room or in theirs. So I called one of my ‘cares about me’ friends, Lyta. (You may recall Lyta, who, along with Jo, was a big part of getting me through the panic attack I wrote about in the post “Surrender” dated: Thursday, December 16, 2010.)
Don’t worry. Leaving the job didn’t spur another panic attack, quite the opposite. But, I did need to share my decision with someone. For two hours Lyta and I discussed how necessary the life adjustments I was beginning to make have been.
After my doctor’s appointment, I went to my neighbor Jo’s place to also share my news. Jo’s response was: “Good for you!” Jo has been there on so many days I’ve come home from work totally affected by the day and by the people.
(BTW, if you are trying to figure out who the hell Jo is, Jo is Jean, also from the December 16th “Surrender” post. Jo, however, thought the name Jean sucked. So, “Jo” it is. She’s right. Jo does fit her better. If I am going to choose a name that protects a friend’s identify/privacy, I’m all for them having a hand in it.
Anyway, since leaving work that Wednesday, I haven’t been back. I have had some stressed days, but not because I am questioning my decision. I don’t. Not one bit. But, responsible me, who knows that at the end of this medical leave I will need health insurance and a new less-stressful source of income, does need to have her voice heard. She needs to call attention to the fact that the stars need to continue to line up.
This is what I have to say to responsible me: The stars will align. Have faith. I’m already living more fully in my Now. Isn’t that as it should be?
I like Now. It’s a great place. The other day, when Jo was helping me with the mechanic drop off/pick up, to get my car road-ready for my long-haul move, we did a lot of asking: What would be fun Now?
First, getting a beer and splitting a burger at the 49er, a local dive bar famous for its legendary burgers, was fun. Next, hitting up another local institution, that was going to be fun.
So, we hopped over to Jo Josts, one of Long Beach’s oldest bars which used to be a barber shop. While we didn’t have one of the special pickled eggs Jo Josts is known for, we each did have a beer. Jo bought me a Jo Josts T-shirt. Now, I can take a little bit of the city I’ve lived in for the last 14 years with me. I’ll tell people Jo Josts is famous for serving up the coldest beer in Long Beach.
As you can see, and as it turns out, were this blog is concerned, I am not gone and I won’t be. I think I am going to need to keep up on posting this adventure I’ve started.
I will also need to keep up on this writing venue, this blog, a venue which has given me the freedom to not need to be perfect. This blog has taught me that I have something to share and until I get an editor, the occasional repeated word, where I start a sentence then rearrange my thought, that’s okay. When I get my editor for my book, the intermittent inscrutable series of words will disappear. Until then, I am just going to continue to do what I know how to do: Share my self and my voice.
Oh, since I am throwing all my shit in storage, and just bringing my bed, ¼ of my clothes, and my painting and writing supplies, I’m also bringing my beach cruiser. I don’t care if that’s impractical or if the side of my bike has a logo that reads: Point Beach when I am headed to the mountains. I am not moving to Colorado forever. I am starting my adventure there.
My bike is my Jerry Maguire office fish. I am starting a new life and the damn bike is coming with me. (I’m taking the fish.) I’m already imagining myself on my bike, ringing my bike bell, and getting looks from the neighbors wondering who the damn blondie is with the ridiculous California beach cruiser.
When I come back to get my stuff out of Long Beach storage, my plan is that it will be because my book is being published, or I am getting married, or I can afford to buy real estate (or all three).
If all of those plans work out, great. If other plans take me somewhere else, great, too. My only real plan is to never work so hard at doing something that I don’t love for people who don’t care about me again.
Life shouldn’t feel like a jail cell. It should feel fabulous, free, and without fear, and right now it does.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
I am going to write my life in pen from now on!
When I started my undergraduate education (I think I was about 22 years old), I kicked it all off with taking classes at the Jr. College in the city where I grew up. In one of the first art classes I’ve ever taken there was an assignment given that I never forgot. “Draw this still life,” the professor instructed us. “Oh, I am sorry,” she went on. “Did I not mention that you are not to use your pencils? You will be using pen for this drawing. There is no erasing with this assignment. If you make a mistake, figure out how to make it work.” That’s what art is all about.”
When I was 18 years old, just two weeks after graduating high school, and about 4-5 years before ever taking that art class with the unforgettable lesson, Jen’s older sister and I moved to Lake Tahoe (I think I’ve mentioned this before). I had two jobs while living in Lake Tahoe.
The first job I held was bagging groceries at a major super market. Yup, I was a courtesy clerk. That job ended when my manager told me that I needed to go next door to the drug store and buy a new white dress shirt, because mine wasn’t clean enough. (There was some dirt on the front of my Oxford from putting my shoulders into it when I was pushing a row of carts in the parking lot the day before.)
“If you haven’t scheduled me for enough shifts to afford to do my laundry, how do you expect me to come up with the money to buy a new shirt?” I asked. My manager, a real piece of work, wasn’t sympathetic. “Figure it out,” she said, “Just come back with a clean shirt.”
So, I left. I rode my bike home, called the super market main phone line, and I asked to speak to the manager. When the piece of sh— , piece of work, said, “Hello, this is the manager,” I said, “This is Leven. I quit.” I hung up the phone. Then, I put my bikini on, got back on my bike, and I went to the lake—King’s beach—for the rest of the day. In three days, I got a new job waiting tables at one of the major family dining restaurant chains which was located even closer to my apartment. Thus, waiting tables for the grave yard shift was my second job in Lake Tahoe.
But then, after a year taking orders, even though I’d moved to getting bossed around by customers on regular day and night shifts, I needed a break. I asked the restaurant manager for time off so I could go to Mazatlan, Mexico with a friend for Spring Break vacation. His answer was no. He said, “Absolutely not,” to be exact. So, I quit. I went to Mexico, and I had a blast. I even went parasailing, except that was scary as hell.
Now, let’s cut to how I am doing now. As you already know, I’ve been pretty miserable at work. For me, it has been a very stressful thing to be under the management of one of the most wretched and unconscious individuals I have ever met in my life (Bull #2).
As much as I understand that the pain and misery Bull # 2 inflicts on others has everything to do with the internal pain Bull # 2 must personally posses deep inside, I do not excuse a person’s pain as a good enough reason to become such a generally feared and hated supervisor. I’ve said it before, wielding one’s position of power over others, and thereby making them feel bullied, powerless, constantly threatened, and stressed, is not acceptable behavior from a being.
Sure, as you know, recently I got a new boss. However, if that New Boss Man ultimately reports to the same Bull #2 I’ve been dealing with for the last year, than how does that change what and who I’ve been dealing with? It doesn’t. It makes it so I have two people I have to answer to. No, wait. There have been three people I’ve been answering to since New Boss Man started. Have I ever mentioned Bitch #1?
Bitch #1 is one of those know-it-all, but-knows-nothing, loves-the-sound-of-her-own-voice (even though everyone else can’t stand it—really can’t stand it), yammering, annoying bitches who also happens to be one of the higher up bosses where I work. But, I’ve never reported to the bitch, and, up until recently, rarely had to deal with her. My New Boss Man recently started to report to her, so that has put me into the position of answering to three people who don’t know how to do what I do for a living but think I should be doing it better.
Put succinctly, in this position, in this place, every expectation put forth, every deadline set, and all scrutiny of the process that my job requires, has been unrealistic. Aside from some of the amazing people I’ve come to know, and get to know better (my dear Ava among the select and wonderful few), every second of every moment I’ve spent working for this place (I’m still not mentioning the name), has been pretty close to tortuous.
Do you know what it is like, when, as a professional trainer, putting together the documentation for, and conducting the training of, various policies, procedures, and softwares, nothing about what it takes to accomplish this is understood by the people asking you to do it?
They know nothing of taking just the right screen shot of a software page, drop-down menu, pop-up screen, login navigational reference, etc. They don’t get positioning the cursor, cropping the image just so, circling or pointing to the aspect of the image which correlates to the steps or directions listed just below that representational picture. They don’t know how to rearrange or cut out certain information so as not to give out any personal or proprietary data in a visual reference. They don’t get how much of the afore-mentioned effort, and more, it takes to get and/or create just the right image that will match up with the language which the image is supposed to represent.
They’ve also got no idea what it takes in creating a consistency in language throughout bulleted lists which may span over 50 pages of a manual or 25+ pages of a presentation. Oh, and could they maintain a similar type of action verbiage throughout their step-by-step direction/instructional sets, including which words to quote and/or put in bold? Would they remember every step that needs to be changed if something in the software or the policy changes? No.
Do any of them have half of my personality in order to be able to train others, to be deft at working a room, and to be comfortable enough in one’s self to be in front of a crowd so that the crowd, the trainees, can be put to ease while they, as learners, are given the task of taking on something new which, inevitably, makes everyone feel stupid? Do they care about how much change devastates people and how threatening them with change in their job is what makes change still more frightening yet? Will they take any of that into consideration in each way that they present new information? Let’s go with “no” again.
Oh shit. I’m sorry. I just realized this is one of the most boring complaints I’ve ever outlined. I’m stopping now, but I think, without mentioning even one more aspect of what it takes to learn, put together documentation for, then teach anything, you get the point that it takes a lot. Thus, I’ve been working at a job, giving my best, which was not good enough, and killing myself for people who want more blood out of me.
That’s why, the day after my dad had quadruple bypass surgery, which was a little over a week ago, I started to question my own hand in my misery. When my father goes in for a stress test for one surgery, then his doctors realize there is a 70% blockage in all but one of the veins leading to and from my father’s heart, and he ends up having another surgery, a quadruple bypass, and they discover the blockages were closer to 90%, the two questions in my mind are 1) Is my father going to be okay? And, 2) Because of the stress in my life, am I going to end up like my father?
I’d already gone home sick the Monday before, because of a B.S. stressful meeting I was in with Bull #2, Bitch # 1, New Boss Man, and two other Managers. Then, adding to my stress, and worried about my dad, I’d called in sick the next day.
What happened when I went back in on Wednesday, the day after the day I called in sick and had explained that my father had just undergone quadruple bypass surgery? I got called into an impromptu meeting with Bitch # 1 and my New Boss man where they proceeded to berate my work and re-dictate the deadlines for my projects.
Did anyone ask me how my father was doing? No. New Boss man, who tries to come off as the Deepak Chopra of managers, but has proven himself to be nothing more than a lip-service fraud, just sat there with Bitch #1 as they pointed out the various changes my 63 page technical how-to manual needed. Really? There are mistakes, corrections, or necessary changes on a manual I spent how many hours/weeks working on? Fuck. Isn’t that what proofing is for? Seriously, thanks for finding the mistakes. That’s how it is supposed to work on a team, you idiots!
Ah, shit. I forgot again. I am not supposed to require the assistance of others to proof my work. I am supposed to do it all on my own. No. Wrong again. I need to exert more initiative and fix my own mistakes and find my own answers. Still wrong. If I need help on anything I have to go through the bureaucratic channels before using anyone else as a resource. No, no, no. I’ve just got it all wrong and I am not up to par.
Oh, and then there is that fact where the replication and data validation of 25+ financial reports hasn’t been completed by me yet, even though that’s not work a production trainer usually does, but generally speaking what a team comprised of a business analysts, a developer, and an accountant would accomplish, so I shouldn’t forget that I still suck on that account, too.
BTW, it is worth mentioning that the entire division I have been working in has been under similar stress, working with just as tight of deadlines, and all equally detest the management, but they are not me so I cannot begin to account for how they want to handle how they are affected.
I am now truly sorry. I did it again. If just writing the last “how many?” paragraphs made you want to stick a drill in you left ear, like me, I shouldn’t have driven you there.
What’s been my point? It’s not worth it, doing work that doesn’t fulfill you for people who are basically killing you. And, while I previously mentioned two jobs that I gave up over a dirty shirt and a Spring break, I would like you to understand that I have never quit anything in my life. I have chosen.
Sometimes life asks you to choose between slowly dieing or consciously living. I choose to live, to turn a corner, make a change, and take a chance. It’s taken me a year of misery, a lot of crying, and even more stress to realize that I’ve never regretted any leap of faith I have ever taken.
That’s why I know I won’t regret putting my entire life in storage so I can minimize my stress. I am giving up this bat-cave condo and I am going to start living just as fearlessly as I did in my youth. I am not going to give all the details now, because I don’t know what route I will take with work to make sure I have continued health insurance to deal with my existing medical conditions, the damn thyroid thing and the blood pressure, but I am saying enough for you to figure it out.
What’s paramount, is that my dad is okay. He was up and walking within a day and a half of his surgery, and when I was talking to him on the phone the other day, he was slowly ascending the stairs (something the doctors told him not to do unless my mom was home, and she wasn’t). But I know in my heart if I keep going at this pace, keep working for this place, if I keep coming home and giving up my dreams to tears, tuning out, and television, I am not going to be okay.
Am I afraid of the changes I am planning ahead? What do you think? But, again, I am more afraid of living the way I have been. I’ve am growing back the back the balls of the 20 year old in me who took off to Mexico.
My truth is now this: I don’t want to live so tentatively that I’m always living in pencil, afraid to make a mistake, afraid to take any chance that won’t give me the room to erase. I may have more furniture, and may need a little more health insurance, now that I am older, but I’m going back to drawing in pen.
Isn’t that what life is about?
(To my big sister: I love you. Thank you for being so fabulous and for helping me find my strength again! There are leaps in life I would not have been able to make were it not for you!)
When I was 18 years old, just two weeks after graduating high school, and about 4-5 years before ever taking that art class with the unforgettable lesson, Jen’s older sister and I moved to Lake Tahoe (I think I’ve mentioned this before). I had two jobs while living in Lake Tahoe.
The first job I held was bagging groceries at a major super market. Yup, I was a courtesy clerk. That job ended when my manager told me that I needed to go next door to the drug store and buy a new white dress shirt, because mine wasn’t clean enough. (There was some dirt on the front of my Oxford from putting my shoulders into it when I was pushing a row of carts in the parking lot the day before.)
“If you haven’t scheduled me for enough shifts to afford to do my laundry, how do you expect me to come up with the money to buy a new shirt?” I asked. My manager, a real piece of work, wasn’t sympathetic. “Figure it out,” she said, “Just come back with a clean shirt.”
So, I left. I rode my bike home, called the super market main phone line, and I asked to speak to the manager. When the piece of sh— , piece of work, said, “Hello, this is the manager,” I said, “This is Leven. I quit.” I hung up the phone. Then, I put my bikini on, got back on my bike, and I went to the lake—King’s beach—for the rest of the day. In three days, I got a new job waiting tables at one of the major family dining restaurant chains which was located even closer to my apartment. Thus, waiting tables for the grave yard shift was my second job in Lake Tahoe.
But then, after a year taking orders, even though I’d moved to getting bossed around by customers on regular day and night shifts, I needed a break. I asked the restaurant manager for time off so I could go to Mazatlan, Mexico with a friend for Spring Break vacation. His answer was no. He said, “Absolutely not,” to be exact. So, I quit. I went to Mexico, and I had a blast. I even went parasailing, except that was scary as hell.
Now, let’s cut to how I am doing now. As you already know, I’ve been pretty miserable at work. For me, it has been a very stressful thing to be under the management of one of the most wretched and unconscious individuals I have ever met in my life (Bull #2).
As much as I understand that the pain and misery Bull # 2 inflicts on others has everything to do with the internal pain Bull # 2 must personally posses deep inside, I do not excuse a person’s pain as a good enough reason to become such a generally feared and hated supervisor. I’ve said it before, wielding one’s position of power over others, and thereby making them feel bullied, powerless, constantly threatened, and stressed, is not acceptable behavior from a being.
Sure, as you know, recently I got a new boss. However, if that New Boss Man ultimately reports to the same Bull #2 I’ve been dealing with for the last year, than how does that change what and who I’ve been dealing with? It doesn’t. It makes it so I have two people I have to answer to. No, wait. There have been three people I’ve been answering to since New Boss Man started. Have I ever mentioned Bitch #1?
Bitch #1 is one of those know-it-all, but-knows-nothing, loves-the-sound-of-her-own-voice (even though everyone else can’t stand it—really can’t stand it), yammering, annoying bitches who also happens to be one of the higher up bosses where I work. But, I’ve never reported to the bitch, and, up until recently, rarely had to deal with her. My New Boss Man recently started to report to her, so that has put me into the position of answering to three people who don’t know how to do what I do for a living but think I should be doing it better.
Put succinctly, in this position, in this place, every expectation put forth, every deadline set, and all scrutiny of the process that my job requires, has been unrealistic. Aside from some of the amazing people I’ve come to know, and get to know better (my dear Ava among the select and wonderful few), every second of every moment I’ve spent working for this place (I’m still not mentioning the name), has been pretty close to tortuous.
Do you know what it is like, when, as a professional trainer, putting together the documentation for, and conducting the training of, various policies, procedures, and softwares, nothing about what it takes to accomplish this is understood by the people asking you to do it?
They know nothing of taking just the right screen shot of a software page, drop-down menu, pop-up screen, login navigational reference, etc. They don’t get positioning the cursor, cropping the image just so, circling or pointing to the aspect of the image which correlates to the steps or directions listed just below that representational picture. They don’t know how to rearrange or cut out certain information so as not to give out any personal or proprietary data in a visual reference. They don’t get how much of the afore-mentioned effort, and more, it takes to get and/or create just the right image that will match up with the language which the image is supposed to represent.
They’ve also got no idea what it takes in creating a consistency in language throughout bulleted lists which may span over 50 pages of a manual or 25+ pages of a presentation. Oh, and could they maintain a similar type of action verbiage throughout their step-by-step direction/instructional sets, including which words to quote and/or put in bold? Would they remember every step that needs to be changed if something in the software or the policy changes? No.
Do any of them have half of my personality in order to be able to train others, to be deft at working a room, and to be comfortable enough in one’s self to be in front of a crowd so that the crowd, the trainees, can be put to ease while they, as learners, are given the task of taking on something new which, inevitably, makes everyone feel stupid? Do they care about how much change devastates people and how threatening them with change in their job is what makes change still more frightening yet? Will they take any of that into consideration in each way that they present new information? Let’s go with “no” again.
Oh shit. I’m sorry. I just realized this is one of the most boring complaints I’ve ever outlined. I’m stopping now, but I think, without mentioning even one more aspect of what it takes to learn, put together documentation for, then teach anything, you get the point that it takes a lot. Thus, I’ve been working at a job, giving my best, which was not good enough, and killing myself for people who want more blood out of me.
That’s why, the day after my dad had quadruple bypass surgery, which was a little over a week ago, I started to question my own hand in my misery. When my father goes in for a stress test for one surgery, then his doctors realize there is a 70% blockage in all but one of the veins leading to and from my father’s heart, and he ends up having another surgery, a quadruple bypass, and they discover the blockages were closer to 90%, the two questions in my mind are 1) Is my father going to be okay? And, 2) Because of the stress in my life, am I going to end up like my father?
I’d already gone home sick the Monday before, because of a B.S. stressful meeting I was in with Bull #2, Bitch # 1, New Boss Man, and two other Managers. Then, adding to my stress, and worried about my dad, I’d called in sick the next day.
What happened when I went back in on Wednesday, the day after the day I called in sick and had explained that my father had just undergone quadruple bypass surgery? I got called into an impromptu meeting with Bitch # 1 and my New Boss man where they proceeded to berate my work and re-dictate the deadlines for my projects.
Did anyone ask me how my father was doing? No. New Boss man, who tries to come off as the Deepak Chopra of managers, but has proven himself to be nothing more than a lip-service fraud, just sat there with Bitch #1 as they pointed out the various changes my 63 page technical how-to manual needed. Really? There are mistakes, corrections, or necessary changes on a manual I spent how many hours/weeks working on? Fuck. Isn’t that what proofing is for? Seriously, thanks for finding the mistakes. That’s how it is supposed to work on a team, you idiots!
Ah, shit. I forgot again. I am not supposed to require the assistance of others to proof my work. I am supposed to do it all on my own. No. Wrong again. I need to exert more initiative and fix my own mistakes and find my own answers. Still wrong. If I need help on anything I have to go through the bureaucratic channels before using anyone else as a resource. No, no, no. I’ve just got it all wrong and I am not up to par.
Oh, and then there is that fact where the replication and data validation of 25+ financial reports hasn’t been completed by me yet, even though that’s not work a production trainer usually does, but generally speaking what a team comprised of a business analysts, a developer, and an accountant would accomplish, so I shouldn’t forget that I still suck on that account, too.
BTW, it is worth mentioning that the entire division I have been working in has been under similar stress, working with just as tight of deadlines, and all equally detest the management, but they are not me so I cannot begin to account for how they want to handle how they are affected.
I am now truly sorry. I did it again. If just writing the last “how many?” paragraphs made you want to stick a drill in you left ear, like me, I shouldn’t have driven you there.
What’s been my point? It’s not worth it, doing work that doesn’t fulfill you for people who are basically killing you. And, while I previously mentioned two jobs that I gave up over a dirty shirt and a Spring break, I would like you to understand that I have never quit anything in my life. I have chosen.
Sometimes life asks you to choose between slowly dieing or consciously living. I choose to live, to turn a corner, make a change, and take a chance. It’s taken me a year of misery, a lot of crying, and even more stress to realize that I’ve never regretted any leap of faith I have ever taken.
That’s why I know I won’t regret putting my entire life in storage so I can minimize my stress. I am giving up this bat-cave condo and I am going to start living just as fearlessly as I did in my youth. I am not going to give all the details now, because I don’t know what route I will take with work to make sure I have continued health insurance to deal with my existing medical conditions, the damn thyroid thing and the blood pressure, but I am saying enough for you to figure it out.
What’s paramount, is that my dad is okay. He was up and walking within a day and a half of his surgery, and when I was talking to him on the phone the other day, he was slowly ascending the stairs (something the doctors told him not to do unless my mom was home, and she wasn’t). But I know in my heart if I keep going at this pace, keep working for this place, if I keep coming home and giving up my dreams to tears, tuning out, and television, I am not going to be okay.
Am I afraid of the changes I am planning ahead? What do you think? But, again, I am more afraid of living the way I have been. I’ve am growing back the back the balls of the 20 year old in me who took off to Mexico.
My truth is now this: I don’t want to live so tentatively that I’m always living in pencil, afraid to make a mistake, afraid to take any chance that won’t give me the room to erase. I may have more furniture, and may need a little more health insurance, now that I am older, but I’m going back to drawing in pen.
Isn’t that what life is about?
(To my big sister: I love you. Thank you for being so fabulous and for helping me find my strength again! There are leaps in life I would not have been able to make were it not for you!)
Saturday, April 9, 2011
I am dating my new bike...
Yeah, I know I said I wasn't going to be back until I finished my book, but, apparently, it looks like I will show up for short little tid bits.
This is what is new in my life: I bought a bike, a beach cruiser. It's purdy, all white with mint/aqua blue details.
I am now dating my bike. Since I picked it up, site-to-store, a couple of days ago, I haven't really had a chance to ride it. I took it for a short spin, but it wasn't enough. I've been staring at my bike, in my living room, and I even get up and sit on it, smile, and think about the nice rides I am going to have on it, but haven't had that ride yet.
Now I have. My first ride just happened. This is is how...
This morning I fully intended to ride my bike, then work on my book. The opposite happened. I woke up, ran some errands, worked on my book until past 9:00 pm, and then, even though settling in for a couple of hours of trash TV seemed to be my agenda, I thought no.
I decided to install my new bike bell (ring-ring) and my new night-time bike light (shine-shine). Then, um, yeah... had a bell, had a light, had to go for a ride.
So, even though I might be admitting that I broke the law (and if so, I am lying about this part), I filled up yesterday's to-go water cup, from Chipotle, with wine, and I went me for a little night-time bike ride. Yes I did.
How'd it go? Great. Rung-rung my bell at some jacuzzi-ers I could hear in their back yard on the bike path near the place I am living. Rung-rung my bell again at some cigar smoking poker playing men I could hear and smell on the same bike path.
The cuzzi/cigaries didn't respond, but who cares. I got to ring my bell, ride my bike, shine my light, and now, I know, without a doubt, that I need a cup holder. Fuck my wine flopping around in my bike basket and trying to balance as I reach for it to take a sip.
Wait. It wasn't wine. It was punch. I'd never break any laws!
Oh my fabulous new bike. I love you Schwinn! Let's cruz! But, we do need that cup holder. Don't we?
This is what is new in my life: I bought a bike, a beach cruiser. It's purdy, all white with mint/aqua blue details.
I am now dating my bike. Since I picked it up, site-to-store, a couple of days ago, I haven't really had a chance to ride it. I took it for a short spin, but it wasn't enough. I've been staring at my bike, in my living room, and I even get up and sit on it, smile, and think about the nice rides I am going to have on it, but haven't had that ride yet.
Now I have. My first ride just happened. This is is how...
This morning I fully intended to ride my bike, then work on my book. The opposite happened. I woke up, ran some errands, worked on my book until past 9:00 pm, and then, even though settling in for a couple of hours of trash TV seemed to be my agenda, I thought no.
I decided to install my new bike bell (ring-ring) and my new night-time bike light (shine-shine). Then, um, yeah... had a bell, had a light, had to go for a ride.
So, even though I might be admitting that I broke the law (and if so, I am lying about this part), I filled up yesterday's to-go water cup, from Chipotle, with wine, and I went me for a little night-time bike ride. Yes I did.
How'd it go? Great. Rung-rung my bell at some jacuzzi-ers I could hear in their back yard on the bike path near the place I am living. Rung-rung my bell again at some cigar smoking poker playing men I could hear and smell on the same bike path.
The cuzzi/cigaries didn't respond, but who cares. I got to ring my bell, ride my bike, shine my light, and now, I know, without a doubt, that I need a cup holder. Fuck my wine flopping around in my bike basket and trying to balance as I reach for it to take a sip.
Wait. It wasn't wine. It was punch. I'd never break any laws!
Oh my fabulous new bike. I love you Schwinn! Let's cruz! But, we do need that cup holder. Don't we?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Gone...Back...Gone again...I'll be back
I have been away from my blog for a while now. I am back, but only for one post to say that I won’t be back again until my book is done, however long that takes.
My book, my writing, my need to express myself, they have all been the casualties of the work stress I have been under and the home environment I can’t seem to get over. And, as you may have noticed in the posts leading up to my silence, I’d become consumed, so much so that I didn’t have anything nice to say anymore. That’s not the person or the writer I’ve ever wanted to be.
Has the toxic environment at work taken a turn? Gawd no. It’s gotten worse. Has the sun decided to make a special appearance in my living room? Sadly, no, again. There are some things that have changed, though. For one, Spring is here. The daylight is lasting longer, and that helps.
The other thing that has happened is that I had a game changing day in my life last Saturday. I went to a psychic and I got the answers to the questions I have been asking: How the hell is it that I have found myself in the worst job I have ever had? How did I choose to move to the darkest place I’ve ever lived? What have I done to myself?
What I’ve done is that I, unknowingly, created the worst possible conditions for myself so that I could come to the conclusion I have needed to come to for a long time. I am not a 9-5-er. I don’t want this life. This is not who I am, who I was meant to be, and this kind of life is not what I have always wanted for myself. The psychic didn’t spell that part out. I figured that out on my own. He did tell me that I have never given myself a chance to live the life I have wanted to live.
That’s when I had to ask myself why that is. Perhaps I have been afraid that my dreams, of making it as writer, were only to remain dreams. I am still afraid I may not be able to make money doing thing things I am most passionate about, communicating through words or color. I am, however, more terrified of living the way I have been living for the rest of my life. The psychic did tell me I had a choice to make in life and getting a new job would be choosing this kind of life, a life of 9-5. (I didn’t tell him I’d been searching for a new job.)
I can’t do 20 more years of this shit, sitting in a gray box, a cube, without windows, having my retinas burned out by florescent light, listening to a frog man clip his nails in the cube next to me, being woken up an hour and a half before my alarm every morning because the dainty bitch above walks like a friggen hippopotamus, and waking up to show up to a hell I never wanted to get a fire suit for.
I don’t want to live in a place that someone else owns. I don’t want to share walls with people who aren’t my family. I don’t want to be put in the position where my rent can change. I don’t want to be the person who creates an enemy out of someone who gave me a place to live, even if they pulled a last minute lease switch on me and broke my trust.
I don’t want to wear collared shirts and poly-blend pants so I can look appropriate for people who could care less about me. I don’t want to worry that if I get a tattoo I might be looked at as less than professional. I am less than professional, damn it! I am a friggen creative. I should have blue hair, or at least a fuchsia pink streak.
You know what else? I am sick of comfortable work shoes. I only want to own two types of shoes in my life. I want the totally uncomfortable kind that make you look hot, but you can only manage the distance to and from the car to the table you will be dining at. And, I want the best comfortable kind. Shoes that say to others you are going to the beach or going for a run.
I don’t want to put make up on every day, either. I don’t want my days to be governed by toxic bosses. I don’t want to sit through another meeting where people are talking about shit that doesn’t matter to me, at all. I don’t want the new things in life I learn to be “how to play their game” or “how to get through the day.”
So, I am giving my dreams a chance. I am going to finish my book and put it out there and shop it to as many publishers as it takes until the right one puts it in print. I am going to see if the life I want for myself can be actualized. If I don’t give my dreams an honest effort, a place to go where my passion has wings, whose fault is it?
Ta Ta for now…
My book, my writing, my need to express myself, they have all been the casualties of the work stress I have been under and the home environment I can’t seem to get over. And, as you may have noticed in the posts leading up to my silence, I’d become consumed, so much so that I didn’t have anything nice to say anymore. That’s not the person or the writer I’ve ever wanted to be.
Has the toxic environment at work taken a turn? Gawd no. It’s gotten worse. Has the sun decided to make a special appearance in my living room? Sadly, no, again. There are some things that have changed, though. For one, Spring is here. The daylight is lasting longer, and that helps.
The other thing that has happened is that I had a game changing day in my life last Saturday. I went to a psychic and I got the answers to the questions I have been asking: How the hell is it that I have found myself in the worst job I have ever had? How did I choose to move to the darkest place I’ve ever lived? What have I done to myself?
What I’ve done is that I, unknowingly, created the worst possible conditions for myself so that I could come to the conclusion I have needed to come to for a long time. I am not a 9-5-er. I don’t want this life. This is not who I am, who I was meant to be, and this kind of life is not what I have always wanted for myself. The psychic didn’t spell that part out. I figured that out on my own. He did tell me that I have never given myself a chance to live the life I have wanted to live.
That’s when I had to ask myself why that is. Perhaps I have been afraid that my dreams, of making it as writer, were only to remain dreams. I am still afraid I may not be able to make money doing thing things I am most passionate about, communicating through words or color. I am, however, more terrified of living the way I have been living for the rest of my life. The psychic did tell me I had a choice to make in life and getting a new job would be choosing this kind of life, a life of 9-5. (I didn’t tell him I’d been searching for a new job.)
I can’t do 20 more years of this shit, sitting in a gray box, a cube, without windows, having my retinas burned out by florescent light, listening to a frog man clip his nails in the cube next to me, being woken up an hour and a half before my alarm every morning because the dainty bitch above walks like a friggen hippopotamus, and waking up to show up to a hell I never wanted to get a fire suit for.
I don’t want to live in a place that someone else owns. I don’t want to share walls with people who aren’t my family. I don’t want to be put in the position where my rent can change. I don’t want to be the person who creates an enemy out of someone who gave me a place to live, even if they pulled a last minute lease switch on me and broke my trust.
I don’t want to wear collared shirts and poly-blend pants so I can look appropriate for people who could care less about me. I don’t want to worry that if I get a tattoo I might be looked at as less than professional. I am less than professional, damn it! I am a friggen creative. I should have blue hair, or at least a fuchsia pink streak.
You know what else? I am sick of comfortable work shoes. I only want to own two types of shoes in my life. I want the totally uncomfortable kind that make you look hot, but you can only manage the distance to and from the car to the table you will be dining at. And, I want the best comfortable kind. Shoes that say to others you are going to the beach or going for a run.
I don’t want to put make up on every day, either. I don’t want my days to be governed by toxic bosses. I don’t want to sit through another meeting where people are talking about shit that doesn’t matter to me, at all. I don’t want the new things in life I learn to be “how to play their game” or “how to get through the day.”
So, I am giving my dreams a chance. I am going to finish my book and put it out there and shop it to as many publishers as it takes until the right one puts it in print. I am going to see if the life I want for myself can be actualized. If I don’t give my dreams an honest effort, a place to go where my passion has wings, whose fault is it?
Ta Ta for now…
Monday, January 31, 2011
Trash and Treasure
Here is a post that may not be globally engaging, but is curious and interesting enough for me to picket. There is this thing that people do, here at this bat village where I live, that I feel is fun enough (odd enough) to mention.
Bats? Oh. Yeah. Saw another bat, just 2 days ago, but this time it was outside the back sliding glass door where all my plants, which are dying from too much shade, are hanging out.
Anyway, my shade and golf-course-squirrel-tormented succulents are not meant to be the focus here. These folks who stick shit out for grabs are.
What I mean is, you go to throw something away in this bat village and then, in the dumpster area, there are things people just can’t imagine living with any more, but they don’t, not quite, think they are trash. So, they set them there, out and on display, and they offer them up, to other trash throw-er-away-ers, for the taking.
On this 11” cement lip, curb-type ledge, if you will, just opposite of the “total trash” and the “please recycle me” dumpsters, these “you gotta give me a home” baubles plead for attention. The bat village dwellers send these doodads and whatnots out on their own in trash alley in the hopes that someone will find their “I’m over it” crap worth while and take it for a personal “Ah! Gotta have that garbage” treasure.
This trash or treasure tender, a complained about and/or accepted (loved/hated) phenomena, has been going on in bat village since I’ve lived her for almost 7 months (and most defiantly before). The hate crowd says, “Come on! Just throw it away. What the hell?” The recycle crowd says, “Well… You know how people stick things out…? I found some stuff, and…” all the while they don’t want to admit they’ve pirated that rubbish right on back to their lair.
Me? F’, yeah! Sign me up. I just dug a coat out of the recycle bin that I don’t plan on wearing until I move, but it is bad ass. I also got a big pot, for one of my plants, which saved me at least $30.00 in terracotta transplanting costs. My neighbor Jean, she just told my how she found a Wayne Dyer book, “Pulling Your Own Strings,” that was set out on the trash “ledge” which prompted her to change her way of operating, and which, as she said, “Has been fun and informative.”
What does it all mean? I don’t know any more. At all. All I know is that I woke up with a text message from Jen saying, “Bleeding into my right breast. Took an ambulance to the hospital. Hypotensive. Tachycardia,” and, as I later learned, had she not have called 911 for an ambulance, she might have bled out and died last night.
I know. Tangent. Strong shift to the left. Trash; then one of my best friends in peril. I’m an ass, a jarring, disjunctive story teller. A bit crook neck. (Bare with me.)
We, and by “we” I mean Jen and me (and by “me” I mean by proxy of being a best friend worrying), waited until this evening to find out that she would not need a blood transfusion from losing so much blood from the blood clot that developed from her surgery and had bursted. (Sorry, the nature of Jen’s original surgery, which took place on my birthday this year, is not my specific detail to share.) Jen having another emergency surgery today to deal with the burst of the blood clot from the original surgery, that almost caused her too bleed out (if I am even getting the medical terms right), that, well, is my detail.
That is where my morning started, with a panic, because of a text message from Jen sent the night before, while I was asleep, at 11:43 pm. The more details I got, was the more I learned that I could have lost a best friend last night, a best friend who has, on most occasions, been more family than my own family to me.
What’s important? This is what we ask ourselves. This is what we should continually ask.
I can’t go see my best friend in the hospital because I don’t live in the same state. So what did I do? I had the conversation I needed to have with her, and then I got the follow up text message from her that I needed to get to know that she was going to be okay. “No transfusion needed. Yeah! H&H 22 and 7.5 now.”
Sorry. I didn’t know what that meant, “H&H 22 and 7.5 now,” either. But, as I Googled, H and H, sometimes written as "H&H", shorthand for hemoglobin and hematocrit, are two very common and important blood tests, but don’t ask me what the 7.5 is. Where medical stuff is concerned, I’m a doof and gum, dumb and a goof. I don’t know shit (and I am too emotionally exhausted to look it all up tonight). But, that Jen didn’t need blood, as much blood as she lost, and that Jen was going to be okay is all that I needed to know.
In the aftermath of my own shock of it all today, I did what I could. I only kinda not cried 4 times at work today. I spent the evening with my neighbor Jean and her daughter, figuring out how to overcome the boy crushes and best friend highs and blows that come from being 12 years old (Jean’s daughter got screwed by a best friend and a boy—oohf).
And, I got a dose of perspective today. Rather than working through another lunch, staying late, and worrying about the follow up review with Bull #2 tomorrow (bully bitch), I ate garlic bread. I focused on a beautiful strong and sensitive teenager’s problems, Jean’s daughter. I relished in the fact that I am going to get at least 20 more years with one of my best friends. I smiled at the treasures that the bat village neighbors put out. I thanked the bigger picture that people and things aren’t indispensable.
And I remembered, that no matter how hard it gets, and how much it can hurt like hell and take its toll, the crap is the cache. The trash is the treasure. Fortune is where you find it.
BTW, if you are curious, among today’s selections for the picking, on the bat village trash walk, were a 3’ x 4’ white framed mirror, a grocery bag full of bird houses (like 7-8 of ‘em), a 2’ x 3’ cork board, a selection of ceramic angels and pooties, and a stainless-steel metal shower caddie.
The shower caddie? Okay. That was my addition. Obviously I’m signed up to the cornucopia of free garage-sale-like trash gifties.
BTW, this is another post I do not apologize for. It’s late. I’ve been stressed all day.
Whatever shortcomings I have as a writer, or in the editing of my own posts (especially the late night posts), I don’t have as a friend loving another friend. I’m willing to be imperfect in my commas and my points. I’m not so willing to loose one of the best gifts of my life… one of my best friends who is my family. I don’t play cards, but I’m playing the ouch card now.
So, if I, in my odd way of being grateful in my personal time of stress, find a way to compare almost losing a friend to the recycled treasures presented by strangers in a bat village, I’m okay with that.
What if in a profound way it’s all connected? What if on a base tangible level, in a greater sharing way, even if the connection is lame as hell, it’s just about coping? What if I’m just coping? What if I’m just trying to work through my expression of appreciation, fear, connectivity, loss, gain, frustration, and elation…
What if I’m just…
So bring it, bat village recyclers. I’m in.
I’m getting dented. I’m having a hard time. What happened to Jen scared the !!!! out of me. But if you want to put things out for my consideration, and if by you doing that I am reminded what are the treasure in my life, even when I’m throwing the garbage out, I’M IN!
I’m in.
Bats? Oh. Yeah. Saw another bat, just 2 days ago, but this time it was outside the back sliding glass door where all my plants, which are dying from too much shade, are hanging out.
Anyway, my shade and golf-course-squirrel-tormented succulents are not meant to be the focus here. These folks who stick shit out for grabs are.
What I mean is, you go to throw something away in this bat village and then, in the dumpster area, there are things people just can’t imagine living with any more, but they don’t, not quite, think they are trash. So, they set them there, out and on display, and they offer them up, to other trash throw-er-away-ers, for the taking.
On this 11” cement lip, curb-type ledge, if you will, just opposite of the “total trash” and the “please recycle me” dumpsters, these “you gotta give me a home” baubles plead for attention. The bat village dwellers send these doodads and whatnots out on their own in trash alley in the hopes that someone will find their “I’m over it” crap worth while and take it for a personal “Ah! Gotta have that garbage” treasure.
This trash or treasure tender, a complained about and/or accepted (loved/hated) phenomena, has been going on in bat village since I’ve lived her for almost 7 months (and most defiantly before). The hate crowd says, “Come on! Just throw it away. What the hell?” The recycle crowd says, “Well… You know how people stick things out…? I found some stuff, and…” all the while they don’t want to admit they’ve pirated that rubbish right on back to their lair.
Me? F’, yeah! Sign me up. I just dug a coat out of the recycle bin that I don’t plan on wearing until I move, but it is bad ass. I also got a big pot, for one of my plants, which saved me at least $30.00 in terracotta transplanting costs. My neighbor Jean, she just told my how she found a Wayne Dyer book, “Pulling Your Own Strings,” that was set out on the trash “ledge” which prompted her to change her way of operating, and which, as she said, “Has been fun and informative.”
What does it all mean? I don’t know any more. At all. All I know is that I woke up with a text message from Jen saying, “Bleeding into my right breast. Took an ambulance to the hospital. Hypotensive. Tachycardia,” and, as I later learned, had she not have called 911 for an ambulance, she might have bled out and died last night.
I know. Tangent. Strong shift to the left. Trash; then one of my best friends in peril. I’m an ass, a jarring, disjunctive story teller. A bit crook neck. (Bare with me.)
We, and by “we” I mean Jen and me (and by “me” I mean by proxy of being a best friend worrying), waited until this evening to find out that she would not need a blood transfusion from losing so much blood from the blood clot that developed from her surgery and had bursted. (Sorry, the nature of Jen’s original surgery, which took place on my birthday this year, is not my specific detail to share.) Jen having another emergency surgery today to deal with the burst of the blood clot from the original surgery, that almost caused her too bleed out (if I am even getting the medical terms right), that, well, is my detail.
That is where my morning started, with a panic, because of a text message from Jen sent the night before, while I was asleep, at 11:43 pm. The more details I got, was the more I learned that I could have lost a best friend last night, a best friend who has, on most occasions, been more family than my own family to me.
What’s important? This is what we ask ourselves. This is what we should continually ask.
I can’t go see my best friend in the hospital because I don’t live in the same state. So what did I do? I had the conversation I needed to have with her, and then I got the follow up text message from her that I needed to get to know that she was going to be okay. “No transfusion needed. Yeah! H&H 22 and 7.5 now.”
Sorry. I didn’t know what that meant, “H&H 22 and 7.5 now,” either. But, as I Googled, H and H, sometimes written as "H&H", shorthand for hemoglobin and hematocrit, are two very common and important blood tests, but don’t ask me what the 7.5 is. Where medical stuff is concerned, I’m a doof and gum, dumb and a goof. I don’t know shit (and I am too emotionally exhausted to look it all up tonight). But, that Jen didn’t need blood, as much blood as she lost, and that Jen was going to be okay is all that I needed to know.
In the aftermath of my own shock of it all today, I did what I could. I only kinda not cried 4 times at work today. I spent the evening with my neighbor Jean and her daughter, figuring out how to overcome the boy crushes and best friend highs and blows that come from being 12 years old (Jean’s daughter got screwed by a best friend and a boy—oohf).
And, I got a dose of perspective today. Rather than working through another lunch, staying late, and worrying about the follow up review with Bull #2 tomorrow (bully bitch), I ate garlic bread. I focused on a beautiful strong and sensitive teenager’s problems, Jean’s daughter. I relished in the fact that I am going to get at least 20 more years with one of my best friends. I smiled at the treasures that the bat village neighbors put out. I thanked the bigger picture that people and things aren’t indispensable.
And I remembered, that no matter how hard it gets, and how much it can hurt like hell and take its toll, the crap is the cache. The trash is the treasure. Fortune is where you find it.
BTW, if you are curious, among today’s selections for the picking, on the bat village trash walk, were a 3’ x 4’ white framed mirror, a grocery bag full of bird houses (like 7-8 of ‘em), a 2’ x 3’ cork board, a selection of ceramic angels and pooties, and a stainless-steel metal shower caddie.
The shower caddie? Okay. That was my addition. Obviously I’m signed up to the cornucopia of free garage-sale-like trash gifties.
BTW, this is another post I do not apologize for. It’s late. I’ve been stressed all day.
Whatever shortcomings I have as a writer, or in the editing of my own posts (especially the late night posts), I don’t have as a friend loving another friend. I’m willing to be imperfect in my commas and my points. I’m not so willing to loose one of the best gifts of my life… one of my best friends who is my family. I don’t play cards, but I’m playing the ouch card now.
So, if I, in my odd way of being grateful in my personal time of stress, find a way to compare almost losing a friend to the recycled treasures presented by strangers in a bat village, I’m okay with that.
What if in a profound way it’s all connected? What if on a base tangible level, in a greater sharing way, even if the connection is lame as hell, it’s just about coping? What if I’m just coping? What if I’m just trying to work through my expression of appreciation, fear, connectivity, loss, gain, frustration, and elation…
What if I’m just…
So bring it, bat village recyclers. I’m in.
I’m getting dented. I’m having a hard time. What happened to Jen scared the !!!! out of me. But if you want to put things out for my consideration, and if by you doing that I am reminded what are the treasure in my life, even when I’m throwing the garbage out, I’M IN!
I’m in.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
How big is your elephant?
About a week after 911 happened I was to get on a plane headed for the East Coast to see my eldest sister. My other sister, just older than me, who lives on the West Coast with me, didn’t want me to fly after what had happened. She was extremely concerned, and said as much to me. To put her mind at ease I told her what I believed to be the absolute truth. “Don’t worry,” I said. “The universe is not done fucking with me yet. I’ll be just fine, and so will everyone else on that plane with me. Trust me. I've got a long life of lessons ahead of me.”
I’d forgotten how, since I'd said that to my sister, whenever something goes hay wire in my life, to laugh about it, and remember I'm supposed to learn from it, it's been my joke to say that the universe is fucking with me again. Something else I often forget, is to figure out how to learn from what I am going through.
And now we get to this chase...
So there I am, annoyed that I’d already driven the neighborhoods for over 4 hours and only saw 2 new For Rent signs. I was exasperated by how, essentially, my apartment search has become a part-time job in the last few months. And, I was pissed off that I still haven’t found a place that doesn’t make me feel like I am going to have to move again. And, then, there it is, just as I was about to make a right turn, this not too shabby middle shade of mint green four-plex, with a hearty For Rent sign winks at me.
The unit for rent appears to be upstairs, so, that’s good, I think to myself. There are a lot of windows, so, that’s great. No info on the rent amount, though. I’m not feeling like this place is it, the one I’ve been looking for, but, still, I will call on it. There’s just some reason I think I should call.
I even drove by the place two more times later the same day, trying to guess how it was laid out inside and trying to see if I could get a different feeling about this place. I wanted to figure out why it didn’t feel right, why it didn’t feel like it was my new home, yet I kept being drawn back to this damn place.
On what was to be my 3rd trip, the following day, I parked near the business that neighbored the rental and then I walked up a driveway type alley to get a better peak. I had more questions. Was the bedroom going to be on the South West corner, getting all the sun light and leaving the living room in the dark? If that’s the case, then damn it. That’s going to suck. I want a South West living room. (Gawd, I’m a sun light addicted but sun light depraved spaz.) Is the door too shallow to get my couch through and up those stairs on that bend? Seems like it. Still, if/when someone calls back, I’ll go check this place out. I’ll measure my couch ahead of time.
When a guy called back I got some additional rental info from him: $1,000.00 a month, 750 sq ft, parking in the driveway. Good. Fine. Then I took his name down. Even though he had a simple name, you know, like Jeff, I asked, “How do you spell that?” Then when he answered, and gave the way he spells it, like G e o f f, I thought: SHIT. We’ve dated.
Of course the guy on the phone was not really named Jeff, or Geoff, that’s the name we’re going with. But, using a simple name like Jeff as an example is meant to point out that there would not only be plenty of otherwise spelled Geoffs in this world, there would be no reason for me to assume it was the otherwise spelled Geoff I dated, yet, that’s what I instantly felt, even if this Phone Geoff didn’t sound anything like the Geoff I thought I dated. Then again, it was over 7 years ago, and me and this Dated Geoff only went out three or four times, so it’s not like the Dated Geoff would have been embedded in my memory.
Wrong. I didn’t know for sure who was on the other end of the phone, and the conversation was so brief, but Dated Geoff, he’s been forever fixed in my brain. Know what a Maestro is? A Maestro is an artist of consummate skill. It’s a title, or a respect, often given to a master musician. Sometimes, though, this title can be used to reference a level of skill in other arts, arts that seem to conjure up the thought that music is being made. (At least in my world that’s how the title Maestro can be used.) So, yeah, in my head, those years back, I had called Dated Geoff The Maestro.
What this man could do with his hands, the dancing he made my body succumb to, the music he could make with his fingers, the singing he got my clitoris to do, well… We shall leave it there. And, yes, I said clitoris, not Delores.
Never slept with the guy. It never got that far. There wasn’t even any oral sex. Nope. There were just those two very lovely post-date nights on my couch where I needed mercy because my body was being turned into a symphony at The Maestro’s hands. (I assure you, it was sheer pleasure.)
But that was Dated Geoff, not Phone Geoff. I still didn’t know who Phone Geoff really was. But I’d find out. I’d see if I’d wasted two day’s energy wondering, asking myself, and going back and forth: Can I rent from a guy who felt me up? What if the place is perfect? I just want to find a new place I’m going to feel at home in, damn it!
The wondering would soon be over. Phone Geoff had pulled into the driveway of the rental place seconds before I parked my car across the street. Phone Geoff drove a newer silver truck. Dated Geoff used to have an old blue truck. Still, it would make sense that if Dated Geoff was Phone Geoff, he would have a newer truck by now. Dated Geoff was renovating the house he owned those years back. Buying, renovating, then renting out property, that all seemed like a logical progression for Dated Geoff.
It should be noted, I never forgot how beautiful the arched entrance was that Dated Geoff had made out of the square doorway between his living room and dining room. Sure, Dated Geoff was also living amongst his plaster dust, didn’t have hardly any furniture, but had, instead, made a wall shelf out of a public bus bench and two over-sized industrial plumbing tubes, and had a dining room table to match (an industrial wooden cable spool with I don't know what on the top), but the raw potential in this guy was always there. He was sort of campy, but in a smart way, and he was artistic, rugged...sexy.
It was him. Dated Geoff didn’t even have to get out of his truck for me to know he was one in the same as Phone Geoff. I could feel it. Still sitting in my car, into my cell phone I said, “Hi. Geoff. It’s Levan. I just pulled up.” “Me, too,” Geoff responded.
Still doesn’t sound like him, but I know it is him, I thought.
“Hi. Good to meet you,” I said, extending my hand for his the way any person would offer a shake upon first meeting someone. Geoff, now a little heavier, but just as friggen gorgeous with his light-ash-brown hair, boyish looks, and broad, strong shoulders, gave me his hand in return. The instant our skin connected, Geoff couldn’t fight it. While Geoff didn’t want to admit it first, that we already knew each other, I could tell he’d recognized me the second I’d gotten out of my car. And, once we were hand to hand, his face betrayed him. The curl of his smile and the light in the corners of his eyes proved to me that he knew it was me.
But I was playing it straight. I wouldn’t let him know I knew it was him and that I knew he knew it was me. I let the elephant follow us up the stairway and in through the front door of the rental unit. The elephant followed me around as I peeked into the bedroom, remarked about the size of the kitchen and asked questions about the lease and if there was a credit check and gas heating.
I can’t be sure, but I think it killed Geoff that I didn’t show even one sign of recognition. He kept burning a hole through me, asking me with his eyes, and daring me with both a stupefied and amused grin, to come clean, to say something, to let him know we’d already been familiarized. Still, I didn’t. And, I knew he wouldn’t be the first to come clean. Male egos are so fragile.
There were, for me, so many more reasons not to address the elephant in the room. For one, I didn’t know if I wanted to rent the place or not and I needed time to digest that decision before I said, “Hey, are you good with taking my rent money when you’ve already checked the credit under my skirt?” (Actually, why wouldn’t he be?)
Also, he had all the advantages. He’s got a house. Hell, he’s got a fourplex for rent. He’s doing just fine for himself. Me? Have you checked my blog posts lately? I’m emotionally homeless and an emotional mess because of work. And, while I was the one who broke it off with him, because he was one of my first trial runs for internet dating, and I couldn’t handle that he might be dating other girls while I was starting to really like him, I more than repaired his ego months later.
I made one of those calls. You know the kind, where your ego ducks its tail between its legs afterward. I didn’t say much, just: Hi. I was an ass to call off our (3rd/4th?) date by leaving only a voice mail. I was hasty. Been thinking about you. Are you still single? Want to go out again?
In response, he didn’t say much either, just something to the effect of: Don’t worry about it. Not a problem. I’m seeing someone, but it’s great to hear from you.
So that’s that.
I sent Phone, Dated, it-friggen-is Geoff an email today:
Subject: Rental
Hello Geoff,
Thanks for showing me the place. However, upon returning home last night, and surveying my furniture, I think the divided living room probably won't accommodate my couch, etc.
Best,
Levan
What I wanted to say was…
Hi Geoff.
The place is great, except the living room really is kinda jacked. But, I probably could have worked around that weird divider thingy, especially since the month-to-month tenancy is so enticing. However, I’ve been in such a fine mess, by renting a bat cave from a batty so-called friend, that I think at this juncture in my life it’s probably an even worse idea for me to rent from a guy who can make me writhe. My mind cannot accommodate the thought of paying rent to someone who turned me into puddy on my couch.
Plus, we all know it’s just not smart to mix business with pleasure, or, should I say, conduct business with someone who has given me physical pleasure?
So, thanks again for the enjoyable 10 minutes we spent together ignoring an elephant. Hope you enjoyed the mention I made of anything that would allow you to confirm that yes, it was, indeed, me. Saying I had a lot of paintings probably really sealed it for you, eh?, as you saw them all on my wall on the 3rd date. But, tell me, did you actually enjoy my academy award winning performance where I gave you no clue that I knew it was you, or was that just me enjoying that?
Anyway, best of luck to you as you continue to make a success out of your life. Wish me luck on getting my shit together, in finding an elephant free place to live, and on me eventually getting my credit checked by someone who doesn’t make me feel utterly embarrassed about how crapped up my little life is. (Oh, wait, that’s not your fault I feel that way. You just caught me at a difficult time. My bad.)
Happy New Year???
Levan
So, back to the drawing board, back to spending at least 6-10 hours of my time, each week, every week, until I find a new place to live where I can give my poor, homeless soul a place to take a breath. Back to me asking the universe, “Are you fucking with me, or what?" And back to me asking, "If so, what am I to learn from this?”
Hey, at least this run in with Dated Geoff proves that we all really are connected. (Even if sometimes it’s a little too connected for comfort.)
I’d forgotten how, since I'd said that to my sister, whenever something goes hay wire in my life, to laugh about it, and remember I'm supposed to learn from it, it's been my joke to say that the universe is fucking with me again. Something else I often forget, is to figure out how to learn from what I am going through.
And now we get to this chase...
So there I am, annoyed that I’d already driven the neighborhoods for over 4 hours and only saw 2 new For Rent signs. I was exasperated by how, essentially, my apartment search has become a part-time job in the last few months. And, I was pissed off that I still haven’t found a place that doesn’t make me feel like I am going to have to move again. And, then, there it is, just as I was about to make a right turn, this not too shabby middle shade of mint green four-plex, with a hearty For Rent sign winks at me.
The unit for rent appears to be upstairs, so, that’s good, I think to myself. There are a lot of windows, so, that’s great. No info on the rent amount, though. I’m not feeling like this place is it, the one I’ve been looking for, but, still, I will call on it. There’s just some reason I think I should call.
I even drove by the place two more times later the same day, trying to guess how it was laid out inside and trying to see if I could get a different feeling about this place. I wanted to figure out why it didn’t feel right, why it didn’t feel like it was my new home, yet I kept being drawn back to this damn place.
On what was to be my 3rd trip, the following day, I parked near the business that neighbored the rental and then I walked up a driveway type alley to get a better peak. I had more questions. Was the bedroom going to be on the South West corner, getting all the sun light and leaving the living room in the dark? If that’s the case, then damn it. That’s going to suck. I want a South West living room. (Gawd, I’m a sun light addicted but sun light depraved spaz.) Is the door too shallow to get my couch through and up those stairs on that bend? Seems like it. Still, if/when someone calls back, I’ll go check this place out. I’ll measure my couch ahead of time.
When a guy called back I got some additional rental info from him: $1,000.00 a month, 750 sq ft, parking in the driveway. Good. Fine. Then I took his name down. Even though he had a simple name, you know, like Jeff, I asked, “How do you spell that?” Then when he answered, and gave the way he spells it, like G e o f f, I thought: SHIT. We’ve dated.
Of course the guy on the phone was not really named Jeff, or Geoff, that’s the name we’re going with. But, using a simple name like Jeff as an example is meant to point out that there would not only be plenty of otherwise spelled Geoffs in this world, there would be no reason for me to assume it was the otherwise spelled Geoff I dated, yet, that’s what I instantly felt, even if this Phone Geoff didn’t sound anything like the Geoff I thought I dated. Then again, it was over 7 years ago, and me and this Dated Geoff only went out three or four times, so it’s not like the Dated Geoff would have been embedded in my memory.
Wrong. I didn’t know for sure who was on the other end of the phone, and the conversation was so brief, but Dated Geoff, he’s been forever fixed in my brain. Know what a Maestro is? A Maestro is an artist of consummate skill. It’s a title, or a respect, often given to a master musician. Sometimes, though, this title can be used to reference a level of skill in other arts, arts that seem to conjure up the thought that music is being made. (At least in my world that’s how the title Maestro can be used.) So, yeah, in my head, those years back, I had called Dated Geoff The Maestro.
What this man could do with his hands, the dancing he made my body succumb to, the music he could make with his fingers, the singing he got my clitoris to do, well… We shall leave it there. And, yes, I said clitoris, not Delores.
Never slept with the guy. It never got that far. There wasn’t even any oral sex. Nope. There were just those two very lovely post-date nights on my couch where I needed mercy because my body was being turned into a symphony at The Maestro’s hands. (I assure you, it was sheer pleasure.)
But that was Dated Geoff, not Phone Geoff. I still didn’t know who Phone Geoff really was. But I’d find out. I’d see if I’d wasted two day’s energy wondering, asking myself, and going back and forth: Can I rent from a guy who felt me up? What if the place is perfect? I just want to find a new place I’m going to feel at home in, damn it!
The wondering would soon be over. Phone Geoff had pulled into the driveway of the rental place seconds before I parked my car across the street. Phone Geoff drove a newer silver truck. Dated Geoff used to have an old blue truck. Still, it would make sense that if Dated Geoff was Phone Geoff, he would have a newer truck by now. Dated Geoff was renovating the house he owned those years back. Buying, renovating, then renting out property, that all seemed like a logical progression for Dated Geoff.
It should be noted, I never forgot how beautiful the arched entrance was that Dated Geoff had made out of the square doorway between his living room and dining room. Sure, Dated Geoff was also living amongst his plaster dust, didn’t have hardly any furniture, but had, instead, made a wall shelf out of a public bus bench and two over-sized industrial plumbing tubes, and had a dining room table to match (an industrial wooden cable spool with I don't know what on the top), but the raw potential in this guy was always there. He was sort of campy, but in a smart way, and he was artistic, rugged...sexy.
It was him. Dated Geoff didn’t even have to get out of his truck for me to know he was one in the same as Phone Geoff. I could feel it. Still sitting in my car, into my cell phone I said, “Hi. Geoff. It’s Levan. I just pulled up.” “Me, too,” Geoff responded.
Still doesn’t sound like him, but I know it is him, I thought.
“Hi. Good to meet you,” I said, extending my hand for his the way any person would offer a shake upon first meeting someone. Geoff, now a little heavier, but just as friggen gorgeous with his light-ash-brown hair, boyish looks, and broad, strong shoulders, gave me his hand in return. The instant our skin connected, Geoff couldn’t fight it. While Geoff didn’t want to admit it first, that we already knew each other, I could tell he’d recognized me the second I’d gotten out of my car. And, once we were hand to hand, his face betrayed him. The curl of his smile and the light in the corners of his eyes proved to me that he knew it was me.
But I was playing it straight. I wouldn’t let him know I knew it was him and that I knew he knew it was me. I let the elephant follow us up the stairway and in through the front door of the rental unit. The elephant followed me around as I peeked into the bedroom, remarked about the size of the kitchen and asked questions about the lease and if there was a credit check and gas heating.
I can’t be sure, but I think it killed Geoff that I didn’t show even one sign of recognition. He kept burning a hole through me, asking me with his eyes, and daring me with both a stupefied and amused grin, to come clean, to say something, to let him know we’d already been familiarized. Still, I didn’t. And, I knew he wouldn’t be the first to come clean. Male egos are so fragile.
There were, for me, so many more reasons not to address the elephant in the room. For one, I didn’t know if I wanted to rent the place or not and I needed time to digest that decision before I said, “Hey, are you good with taking my rent money when you’ve already checked the credit under my skirt?” (Actually, why wouldn’t he be?)
Also, he had all the advantages. He’s got a house. Hell, he’s got a fourplex for rent. He’s doing just fine for himself. Me? Have you checked my blog posts lately? I’m emotionally homeless and an emotional mess because of work. And, while I was the one who broke it off with him, because he was one of my first trial runs for internet dating, and I couldn’t handle that he might be dating other girls while I was starting to really like him, I more than repaired his ego months later.
I made one of those calls. You know the kind, where your ego ducks its tail between its legs afterward. I didn’t say much, just: Hi. I was an ass to call off our (3rd/4th?) date by leaving only a voice mail. I was hasty. Been thinking about you. Are you still single? Want to go out again?
In response, he didn’t say much either, just something to the effect of: Don’t worry about it. Not a problem. I’m seeing someone, but it’s great to hear from you.
So that’s that.
I sent Phone, Dated, it-friggen-is Geoff an email today:
Subject: Rental
Hello Geoff,
Thanks for showing me the place. However, upon returning home last night, and surveying my furniture, I think the divided living room probably won't accommodate my couch, etc.
Best,
Levan
What I wanted to say was…
Hi Geoff.
The place is great, except the living room really is kinda jacked. But, I probably could have worked around that weird divider thingy, especially since the month-to-month tenancy is so enticing. However, I’ve been in such a fine mess, by renting a bat cave from a batty so-called friend, that I think at this juncture in my life it’s probably an even worse idea for me to rent from a guy who can make me writhe. My mind cannot accommodate the thought of paying rent to someone who turned me into puddy on my couch.
Plus, we all know it’s just not smart to mix business with pleasure, or, should I say, conduct business with someone who has given me physical pleasure?
So, thanks again for the enjoyable 10 minutes we spent together ignoring an elephant. Hope you enjoyed the mention I made of anything that would allow you to confirm that yes, it was, indeed, me. Saying I had a lot of paintings probably really sealed it for you, eh?, as you saw them all on my wall on the 3rd date. But, tell me, did you actually enjoy my academy award winning performance where I gave you no clue that I knew it was you, or was that just me enjoying that?
Anyway, best of luck to you as you continue to make a success out of your life. Wish me luck on getting my shit together, in finding an elephant free place to live, and on me eventually getting my credit checked by someone who doesn’t make me feel utterly embarrassed about how crapped up my little life is. (Oh, wait, that’s not your fault I feel that way. You just caught me at a difficult time. My bad.)
Happy New Year???
Levan
So, back to the drawing board, back to spending at least 6-10 hours of my time, each week, every week, until I find a new place to live where I can give my poor, homeless soul a place to take a breath. Back to me asking the universe, “Are you fucking with me, or what?" And back to me asking, "If so, what am I to learn from this?”
Hey, at least this run in with Dated Geoff proves that we all really are connected. (Even if sometimes it’s a little too connected for comfort.)
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