Portrait of a (pseudo) Lady

The Tyranny of Capitalism

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:14:48 GMT

Okay so I realize that it's been a while since I've posted and I probably have absolutely no leg to stand on to complain but do you see the big ADVERTISEMENT at the top of this page?!? URGH. It used to be free to host the LJ here but now you either have to pay for your site OR they run big advertising headlines across the top.

It's almost enough to make a girl shell out for cyberspace rights. I'll have to talk to the hubby about that.

Anyway, a quick rundown update of what's been going on in MandyLand since last I updated the poor neglected LJ. I'm still working at the ol' accounting firm, still living in Tulsa and still happily married. Really the only new things that would remotely qualify as LJ-worthy are the following:

1) We put our house on the market and are attempting to sell it (apparently at the worst time in history to sell it) to move back to Norman and buy a Craftsman bungalow we can pour lots of money and time into.

2) We added to our four-legged family with the addition of a kitten named Olivia. She is adorable and her big brothers are both completely besotted with her.

And, literally, that's pretty much it. Other than that things are just trucking along the way they are known to do - work, eat, sleep, eat, work, eat, sleep. With some Rangers baseball and the occasional movie thrown in for spice.

Hopefully it won't be too long until I can get that advertisement off the top of this page. But I just had to grouse about it so that you would know I didn't enjoy having it there. I think it's important to the integrity of the LJ that advertisements be restricted. Guess that's their way of getting you to give them your money!

Sigh. The tyranny of capitalism knows no bounds if not even the LJ is safe...

Another Food Run-down.

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:07:05 GMT

Alright so last time it was Des Moines and now we're headed west - to Phoenix. Some highlights of my 'culinary adventure' in the Sun State:

Padre's: This place bills itself as 'modern Mexican' and it is fabulous. The lazy enchiladas are a tasty blend of cheeses wrapped in soft corn tortillas and smothered in a sweet'n'spicy green chile salsa. A glass of the Lagaria Pinot Grigio is the perfect compliment. One thing I'd pass on - the fried ice cream. The ice cream is tasty but the fried outside was not and by that point you're so full anyway the additional food just makes your stomach uncomfortable.

Pizzeria Bianco: When you call ahead and there's a 2 1/2 hour wait for a party of 5 you can think two things. Either the place is ridiculously overrated OR it's going to be the gastronomical experience of a lifetime. When the rest of the group ditched, I only had to wait 1 1/2 hours for a seat at the restaurant bar of this intimate pizzeria with the wood fire stove in the back corner. I fully intended to save some of my pizza for the ditchers - but not a single bite remained. The Margherita pizza with fresh mozzarella (made daily) and fresh basil (picked daily) and a light, slightly sweet tomato sauce, was probably the best pizza I've ever had. You wait in another building - the actual bar - and a glass of Olivet Lane Chardonnay and a good book passed the time just fine. A glass of a Pinot Grigio whose name I can't remember (for shame!), the good company of the pizza-loving strangers around me and the warm, yeasty crust... I completely understand the wait. And I would wait again.

Check back - I have one more night to find something else yummy...

Sometimes people suck.

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:40:58 GMT

You know, this is actually a really harsh reality for me. I’m one of those people – I tend to trust everybody. I help everybody. I do what I can for everybody. (Not to say I’m the best person; it’s just a habit, bred in me by my everything-to-everyone father.)

So when people suck – openly, without remorse, straight to my face – it’s jarring. I’m surprised and bitterly disappointed.

I struggle with this because part of me realizes that you shouldn’t help people with conditions. If you just want to genuinely do what you can, then you do that regardless of whether or not that person will ever do anything for you in return. But I guess that the idea of reciprocity is just ingrained in me alongside my need to help – because regardless of whether or not I should expect a return on my investment, I do.

It’s most upsetting when people that you thought appreciated your assistance just ignore that you are now the one in need of help. As if they never even heard you voice your problem. What is that even about? Do they not appreciate all that I’ve ever tried to do for them? Or do they appreciate and yet have no intention of reciprocating regardless? And can you really appreciate someone’s help without feeling some need to reciprocate? And am I being completely selfish to expect anything in return or any appreciation in the first place?

If I seem upset it’s because I am. I’m still in the early moments after this has just happened and I’m almost frustrated to the point of tears. I don’t understand. Why do I always end up feeling used?

This has been a problem for me in the past or it might not be such an upsetting thing for me today. I have often discovered that my being ‘nice’ was really my being USED without that aspect of it being admitted to my face. But this felt like it was straight up, in your face, “Thanks for your help yesterday, but you’re on your own today.”

The part that hurts is that I can’t seem to figure out how to balance my wish to help people with my desire to not end up feeling like a dishrag. How can you walk the line? How can I help as I want to without feeling so crappy later?

POSTSCRIPT
So after a day of thinking about this off and on, I decided that I have really only two options. The reality is that there will always be people out there who don't really appreciate anything. Or they do but they don't show it the way that I would. SO my options are as follows:

1) stop helping anyone in order to not feel crappy when I find those people, or

2) continue to help and stop worrying about anything being reciprocated.

Since I know, for a fact, that there are also wonderful people who make me feel appreciated and make me glad that I was able to help them, I choose to get on with the helping and forget all this mess. I'm sure I'll be upset again in the future but, I'm going to try to remind myself that I don't help for those that don't appreciate it, but for those that do. And since you can't distinguish which a person is until you've helped them - that's what I'm going to continue to do.

An outsider's perspective.

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:22:04 GMT

It seems like it would be so easy. People that you talk to everyday, who have known you forever, or who should just plain know better - who seem to have developed a view of who you are that just doesn't make any sense. They say things about your personality, your dreams or your values that ring astonishingly false and you feel... angry.

How could you know me so well and yet not know me at all?

I realize that this misunderstanding is part of life - that we are all externally different than what we internally see (because the dialogue in our brain is, sometimes sadly and sometimes mercifully, private). But it frustrates me all the same when someone pigeonholes me with such confidence, and I know in my heart that they're dead wrong.

The difficult part of this for me is actually two-fold: 1) I feel guilty - like maybe they're right, and 2) I feel like the time spent with them has been wasted if they're not.

The truth is - in the instances of which I'm speaking - I know they aren't right. And it frustrates me so much because then - all the time I have spent has been a complete and utter waste.

I wish that people would work harder to understand the whole of a person and not a few experiences with them. I wish that people would work harder to appreciate differences in others, rather than disparage them.

I wish that people could see who I am, rather than who they think me to be.

Say what you need to say.

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:20:27 GMT

Last week, a friend of my parents was diagnosed, quite suddenly, with Legionnaire's disease, a severe lung infection much like pneumonia.

Yesterday she lost her fight with that infection.

I never had the chance to meet her, but I feel sorrow all the same. In my mind's eye I see her family, caught completely unaware and aching with loss. I hear the sadness in my parent's words and my heart longs to fill a friend-shaped hole that will forever remain empty.

As I have thought over her passing these last 36 hours, it has brought an urgent thought to my mind. A rush of desire to love life and all that I find in it, and to speak that love to those I meet. To share happiness, joy, beauty, comfort. To say all of the things that well up inside of me and give voice to the dreams of my heart without hesitation. To never take one single moment as just another in a long line of many, but as an independent and important opportunity to live.

I find comfort in the fact that she was surrounded by her family and friends, those who loved her and spent her last days hands lifted to heavens asking for his intervention. But I find it important that those of us who were touched, however briefly, by her story should take something from it. She has lost the opportunity to love and cherish those she cared for so deeply - do not waste the moments that remain to you.

It is easy for us to focus on gratitude for material things - food to eat, a bed to sleep in, a roof over our heads during a storm. But what of all of the immaterial things that make up the true fabric of your personal story? The memories and the moments spent with those who matter most.

Cherish them. So that they will have those moments to cherish should you someday leave them.

support group

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:29:57 GMT

This week, on my encouragement, my husband is taking a step towards a very large personal dream. I have done my best to push and prod at the right times, to give space and silence at others. I have worked hard to give him this opportunity and to listen to him talk about all the little nuances of it that I only half understand.

But now I am afraid.

The largest part of my place in all of this (as well as his) lies ahead. This week he will have to go out and give everything he has to make the most of this tiny sliver of an opportunity. He has practiced, he has prepared and we have kitted him out with the tools of his chosen trade to the extent our finances have allowed.

And I am afraid.

He has talent, and I know this. I would not have encouraged him to pursue this as far as I have if I did not believe he had the ability to see it through. But I am afraid. Circumstances are out of our hands and it is always possible that a dream will fall flat in reality.

If he ends up disappointed this week... I am afraid I will be downtrodden at the time when I need to be of most use to him. I have faith in him but not faith in fate and I worry that I will have led the man that I love into heartbreak.

Now, I know from personal experience that to chase a dream and fail is far better than to never chase at all, because you have the memory and the pride of the pursuit, if not the prize.

But that does not make the experience less painful and of all the things in this life that I would most avoid it would be to cause him pain.

If you think of me this week, send up wishes of success for my husband. I would give almost anything I have if only this week would turn out to be what I know he has been dreaming of.

And she would dance.

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:08:27 GMT

I miss dancing. I was never a really great dancer technically, but I just loved it. It was such an emotional release for me. I could put so much of myself and my feelings in the movement and I miss that outlet.

I've thought about trying to get back into dancing but there's a fear there that I won't be able to get back to even what I was, and certainly not anything better. I know part of it is just fear, part of it is not wanting to pay for classes and part of it is not wanting to fit my post-college body into spandex.

But mostly I think it's just fear. I remember dancing with a fondness and I watch dancers with a rekindling of passion that I would hate to lose should a return to dance be a disappointment. As I age I know that I am improving by leaps and bounds mentally and emotionally but physically that is just not the case.

But I listen to beautiful music and I close my eyes and I see the movement and I feel the joy in it and I want to pull out my lyrical shoes and find my way onto the floor. We'll see. Maybe eventually I'll find the courage to get myself back out there and stop letting the fear keep me closed off in this body.

Maybe.

Lord knows, I'll fail you.

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:54:28 GMT

I have long been a person of very intense, very focused emotions. Perhaps one of the feelings I have the most experience with is that of being a disappointment. Of being less-than-expected. Of being different-than-desired. There have been many times in my life where I have not fulfilled someone else's dream of me, and they have been all too happy to point it out.

It is difficult to acknowledge our own failures, but even more so when they are not failures in our own eyes. There have been many times where I felt that I was right where I needed to be, that my actions were right and the intentions were good. But it was not enough. It was not another's idea of right and good and therefore it was wrong and bad.

It is so hard when you think you're on point and someone else doesn't - who is right? Who decides what the appropriate action should have been and who should get the blame for the unmet expectations?

For the longest time I solved this problem by just trying to fit the expectations, to mold myself to the communicated ideal. But a few years ago I found relationships that made me feel like more than I had ever been. In those sweet moments of acceptance, I was enough just how I was.

Those relationships have spoiled me and these days I'm just no good at trying to please people like I used to. I want to be me - warts and disappointments and failures and all. I'm not perfect and could never be - but I shouldn't have to be in order to be loved and accepted.

This shift in my perspective has caused a few issues with those who think that I should try harder, be more, give more. But I disagree with them and who is to say who is right? I don't want to have to always BE MORE or GIVE MORE or try so dang hard. Love and friendship aren't easy but they shouldn't leave me so torturous and broken either.

What I realized at some point is that when you give over to someone else's expectations, you lose yourself in their idea of your life and you cease to live. You are no longer you but an extension of them, an extension of something that they find useful to themselves.

It is a difficult transition because you want those relationships to be good and positive and strong, but what I have learned is that a one-sided relationship only appears to be those things and is, in reality, none of them. A relationship that is only maintained by the constant kowtowing of one person is not a relationship at all - it is servitude.

Not that I can say I am always perfect in relationships but I think that I have learned I have too often been too quick to please and lost myself in the process. I don't want to purposefully frustrate people, but I don't want to have to always bend until I break in order to keep the peace.

I just hope that someday new bridges can be built that allow us to meet more in the middle and a relationship can begin that is built on mutual love and respect and acceptance. Some days I fear it is an impossible dream... but I hold on to it anyway.

Well that wasn't in the vows.

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:50:43 GMT

Last weekend my husband and I traveled down to Dallas to help my parents settle into their new house. We found ourselves building furniture for my brother's bedroom while my mother and her parent's looked on. At one point, after several pieces had been troublesome only to reveal themselves attached backwards, my husband was annoyed. I was no longer helping but instead was relegated to staying out of his way and handing him anything out of his direct reach.

As he grumped through the rest of the wall unit, my mom jokingly observed "I think we're putting your marital bliss to the test here, Mandy."

This comment launched my grandfather into a story about the first months of his marriage to my grandmother. Apparently at one point he asked her to mow the lawn one day while he was at work. He came home that afternoon to a wife beyond annoyed because she had been unable to get the lawn mower started. When she went to show him, she pulled the cord so hard in her anger that the mower finally roared to life.

My grandfather is, to this day, still quite amused at the mental image of her standing over the noisy mower, vowing never to even attempt to mow the lawn again.

My grandmother simply shrugged and said "Well mowing the lawn wasn't in the vows. I didn't promise to do THAT."

This exchange got me thinking about all of the things that married life does actually entail that are never mentioned before or during the hoopla of your wedding day. Even in today's jaded world where much of the pre-marital counseling centers around the reality of day-to-day married life and bringing your love-high down to earth, there are numerous things that no one ever mentions. To name a few:

1) For those who go the traditional route of sharing a home and a bed - you might be sharing more of that bed than you ever would have agreed to. The longer my husband and I are married the more of my side of the bed he seems to think he is now entitled to. And if Daly or Ralph wants to nap with us - I might as well just go sleep on the couch.

2) All of the times Colin complained about his roommate's bad habits (i.e. leaving cabinet doors open in the kitchen) I never dreamed he was actually the culprit. I have now hit my head on those open cabinet doors often enough to have learned better.

3) If both partners are always selfless, you'll never get anywhere. Have you ever thought of the logistical nightmare it would be if both you AND your significant other spent every waking moment trying to make the other happy? Would anyone ever actually BE happy? No. Marriage is not actually about continual selflessness, although that always sounds nice when people talk about it. In practice, one person is selfless while the other gets to be selfish and then you trade off. If not, neither of you would ever actually get anything you want - you'd be too busy trying to give the other person what they wanted while they were busy trying to deny they wanted it in order to give you what you wanted. (What a MESS!)

4) You will go to bed angry and, sometimes, you will wake up even angrier. Think about trying to hash out an argument at 2am when you both have to work in the morning. At that point you're so pissed that you're still arguing you'll never come to a consensus. Give up the ghost and go to bed - but don't expect to wake up to roses in the morning. Love isn't about never fighting or about always giving in with some beautiful gesture - it's about always knowing that you'll make up at some point in the somewhat-immediate future and there won't be any residual crap left over to deal with weeks later.

5) Your goals won't always be the same. It sounds lovely to think that you'll find someone who will always want exactly what you want but I'm not sure I believe that's ever the case. (Maybe - I can't rule out aberrations but I just think it is probably quite rare.) I think one of the more beautiful aspects of marriage is the level of necessary compromise and the love in that compromise. Oftentimes you have to say "I will do this now, if you will do X later." But the compromises are big things - where to live, where to work, when to have children or get pets. To know that someone loves you enough to compromise on the big things is the beauty and the power of commitment.

I think marriage has been wonderful and interesting and has stretched and pulled me in all sorts of directions. I know I'm a better person for it - and we're just now 18 months in. I can't imagine what kind of person I will be 20 years from now.

Regardless, it might not be a good thing that no one warns you about all that marriage really entails - for certainly far fewer individuals would speak those vows if everything were written in, laundry, lawn-mowing and all.

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat".

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:56:08 GMT

-- Winston Churchill, circa 1940

I find this quote strikes close to the heart for me. It describes what I have always felt in my heart about myself - that I have nothing to offer but my work. Nothing but doing this and doing that and striving to exceed all expectations. That was it. That was all I had to give.

I'm not sure what it is that really made me feel that way but it is a difficult mindset to change. For the last several years I have tried to shift my personal estimation of my own self-worth to factors beyond my exertions on someone else's behalf. Surely there was something more to me than just what I could DO. What about all that I just AM?

But in pondering this quote over the past few days, perhaps the line between those two things is not as distinct as I would like to think. Part of who I am, is all that I do.

One of the few things that I remember from the dress rehearsal for our wedding is something that Colin said. They put us on the spot and asked us what it is that we love about each other (in front of a room full of people). And he said something like "Her focus is always on what she can do for someone else and, the majority of the time, that someone else seems to be me. Her ability to give of herself to others is what I love most."

Perhaps my focus should not be on the things that I do, so much as why I do them. I truly have nothing to offer but the blood in my veins, the work of my hands, the tears running down my face and the sweat pouring from my forehead. Nothing. That truly is the sum total of what I can GIVE to someone else and it is how I direct those resources that speaks volumes about who I am as a person.

Not to imply that it is always saying something nice - because it certainly isn't. But I think that should be my focus, more than on changing how I view myself in terms of what I do versus who I am and other questions that don't have concrete answers. Perhaps I should focus instead on just making my actions convey something positive more often than they don't.

House of Resurrection

Fri, 30 May 2008 20:58:42 GMT

This is apparently where my astrological self is currently located - in the House of Resurrection. (Say what you want about astrology, I read up in the Urban every time I get my hands on the paper because I find it interesting.) The illustrative quote provided for this current state is one where Bjork describes her approach to being: "I have to re-create the universe every morning when I wake up, and kill it in the evening."

This is, actually, a relatively accurate description of my life at this point. I have to re-center myself on a fairly reguarly basis. At the beginning of each day I have to ask myself, what am I working towards? What is it that I want? What is most important? At some point during the day I tend to forget, tend to wander off-course. Somewhere near the end of the day I realize that I'm not quite sure what I'm working towards anymore and I'm not sure I've made any progress to where I actually was aiming to go.

Sometimes I even realize I've been a very active participant in the actual destruction of my own goal.

It is quite true, I find, that there are times where we are our own worst enemies. We wander through life taking a passive interest in the results of our own actions and, as such, those actions often come back to haunt us. "Why did I do that? Now I can't do X." I do this on... well, pretty much a daily basis.

I'm working on it. Every morning I try to stop and ask myself to consider where I'm going so that I don't forget. Sometime in the afternoon I tend to forget and just mindlessly try to end the day. But I'm working on extending that awareness later and later... so that hopefully one day I don't mess myself up so much by not being mindful.

Whoever says Des Moines is just for driving through

Tue, 20 May 2008 01:04:21 GMT

has never eaten here.

The food here is fantastic. I have been here for just over 24 hours and have had three amazing meals at three very different restaurants. For those of you who might be tempted to pass through Des Moines someday without stopping (except at the few stoplights you pass), stop in at one of the following (make the time). Trust me, you won't regret it.

(I'll update this post as the week goes on to let you know whatever other culinary treats, or tortures, I uncover.)

Court Avenue Restaurant and Brewery - For my Normanite friends, this is a little like a fancified Coaches. They brew their own beer and yet have fabulous, decadent food on the menu. I ended up with the fish 'n chips, sans the chips (substitute: white cheddar mashed potatoes). The fish was lightly breaded and not the least bit greasy and the mashers were rich and tasted only slightly of cheese. Very very tasty. (The service was not-so-hot but the food more than made up for it.)

The Spaghetti Works - A wonderful Italian place with a salad bar carried on the back of an old-time truck down the middle of the dining room. I sat at a booth facing a window and the weather was perfect and the people were friendly. The angel hair pasta with "hot and naked" sauce, fresh veggies and mushrooms with a side of garlic bread (ALL YOU CAN EAT by the way) was finger-licking fantastic. I couldn't even eat one bowl but I certainly wished I could have eaten more. (I would have too - shut your pie hole carb-watchers!)

Mayabi 9 - This evening's meal and the one that finally inspired me to put all this down for you guys: sushi. Made by a Japanese chef, trained in Japan. With tempura cheesecake (with light whipped cream) for dessert. Oh the tasty goodness. (Also a bonus when eating by yourself - the ability to sit at the sushi bar and read a book without sticking out to the other guests as a loner. Lovely.)

And for those of you thinking 'how could she possibly indulge so much?!?' I have also walked myself all over downtown Des Moines, and am currently on my way down to the hotel pool for a swim. So THERE.

What is the secret, you might ask, to finding such wonderful food in a town I've never been to? Easy - ASK THE LOCALS. Don't just drive down the commercial strip and stop at a Chili's. I like to ask the hotel desk people - "If you were only here for X days, where would you eat?" And if they give me a particularly good suggestion - I go back the next night and ask again.

I've never been disappointed.

ENTRY UPDATE:

Johnny's Hall of Fame - Sports bar type atmosphere, sports bar type food. The fries were good, the burger was good but nothing really spectacular. I wouldn't say not to go there, but it certainly wouldn't be my first suggestion.

The Trattoria - Now this place, I would definitely suggest. I left a snooty, upscale place to try this out instead at the shuttle driver's recommendation. A family-run, Italian hole-in-the-wall run out of a downtown basement, even the atmosphere is lovely. Very dark, very intimate, and the waitstaff were very nice. The Tuscan Tomato soup, fresh salad, warm bread and linguini with Trattoria sauce were all quite tasty. (Tip though - pass on the dessert or you'll want to explode.)

Legends - Another sports bar but with better service and better food. The parmesean-crusted tilapia with fresh veggies and rice was absolutely fantastic - although so filling I didn't eat again for the rest of the day. The client brought me here; a wonderful patio atmosphere on a perfect spring day in Des Moines.

Centro - If you're in Des Moines for a special event, this would be the place to celebrate. The wine list was phenomenal (La Crema Chardonnay anyone?), the bread was soft and warm and I can't say enough about my meal. Actually an appetizer, the cheese-stuffed Focaccia bread was so good I sat at my table-for-one and giggled into my wine glass. Absolutely incredible.

Act of Violence

Fri, 16 May 2008 15:15:16 GMT

This spring I enrolled in an English course at a local university - an elective, Violence in Literature. After long discussions with my husband, I had decided that I would pursue the English degree I had not gotten the first time around and, much to my surprise, I only needed a few classes to complete it. Violence in Lit would be a small first step, albeit an extremely important one to me personally.

I approached the classroom on the first day, tentative, scared. There was so much riding on that class, at least in my heart, that I was shaking as I took a seat. I was so excited... it amazes me to look back on it now. There was so much hope in that classroom, in that class, for me.

As the semester unfolded, the class itself became not just the study of violence in literature, but very literally a weekly act of violence against my self. I was horrified to discover that something I had previously enjoyed so much could become such torture. The professor, the other students, the writing assignments. I hated almost everything.

At first I was completely devastated. "What does this mean?!?" I would beg Colin to tell me after yet another miserable Wednesday night class. "Why don't I love this like I used to? Am I different now? Have I lost myself somewhere?" I was absolutely mortified at the idea that I might have somehow lost my love of what I have always held so dear.

But as the final paper and final exam inched closer, during a particularly frustrating class focused around a book and a documentary that both moved and inspired me, I finally learned something from this terrible class.

It wasn't me.

My love of writing, my love of the books and the culture and the questioning, it is all still the same. What was different was the setting. The other students were critical of EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY and there was no room for emotion or personality in their rigid rhetoric. The professor was the leader of their Literazi mentality, he name-dropped like a Masters student as if he were proving to his own class that he was good enough to be there.

And there I was, in the middle of the negativity, wanting merely to talk about the emotion in Toni Morrison's words and the power behind the Weathermen's attempt at political change. I didn't want to pull them apart in comparison to Freud or Hobbes. I wanted to love or hate them but respect them regardless.

My focus is different - this is what I know now. I will never be the typical Literature student that I encountered in that classroom, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. My reason for being there, my reason for writing - it is just different.

I write for the love of it - not for my life. It does not define me and I do not seek to define it. And as such, our relationship is beautiful and focused on love and respect, not literary critique and a flashy show of intelligence.

In the end, fully prepared to take a grade-hit due to my struggle with the class itself, I am surprised to see an A on my transcript. But, in a twisted way, I think I deserve that A. I learned something far more critical to my self than anything the professor attempted to teach me - and it has changed me, it has re-shaped my view of my writing and my purpose here.

I think I will view this grade not so much as an A for academic effort as an A for psychological perseverance. Not so much for learning of violence, as for surviving it.

Home

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:30:19 GMT

I want to go home.

This traveling thing has really sucked. I know, I know, everyone says it's not supposed to be that hard for me because I don't have kids.

BAH!

I'm just a homebody I guess. Being away disorients me, throws me off, makes me sad and grouchy. I also don't like being away from my house or, for that matter, my husband (and yes, I'll admit it). It's just something about the inconsistency... going from seeing the same things and the same person in the same order every day to...

being alone in a strange town with work people who are only nice to you because you work together.

It's also frustrating to know that over the past several months my office has become a mess, my car is atrocious and my ability to finish an entire book has slid back downhill.

This should be my last day out of town for a while - and I'm so glad. Perhaps I'm just a big fat baby, because I know several people who travel far more than I do.

But I don't care! I still want to go home.

(Pout.)

Be my Valentine?

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:29:06 GMT

I've never been either a huge fan or foe of Valentine's Day. I know a lot of people (both single and otherwise) who think it a silly or just downright dumb holiday and others who just lap up the lavish red and white lacy-ness and the calorie-packed displays of manufactured affection.

I guess I'm just somewhere in the middle.

For me this year it has meant waking up in a hotel room all alone, eating pizza for dinner in a hotel room all alone and trying not to cry at work. Not exactly a lovely way to spend a schmoopy holiday, but the way it was nonetheless.

What I guess I have thought about, really though, is all of the love in my life that I have to be grateful for. My family (including the recently acquired in-laws), my friends, my husband, our four-legged, furry kids.

It is rather heartwarming, heart-shaped box of chocolates or not, to truly stop and think about all of the people in your life who care for you. Sure there are people who don't and people who used to who don't anymore and people who never will. But if there is even just one, just one person who misses you when you're gone, or who wonders when you're late...

love is in the air.

WEAKNESS

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:27:48 GMT

thy name is food.

I have been trying to be more mindful of my eating habits since about November. I joined WeightWatchers, not as much to lose weight as to learn how not to gain quite so much of it. I had been steadily gaining weight since my college apartment days, when the ability to make my own meals lead to nights full of chicken fried steaks and mashed potatoes smothered in tasty gravy.

What I have learned is this - my strongest weakness is good food.

It doesn't take much. Just the barest mental suggestion and all of a sudden I am desperate to satisfy whatever craving I have just created. Pastries, potatoes, cheesecake, cheese. I think about something specific and I WANT IT.

I have lost weight with WeightWatchers but it has often been two steps forward and then a big step back. I do well for a few weeks and then all of a sudden it all falls to pieces around a big dinner and an excellent bottle of wine.

The thing is - I'm not always sure my new awareness is a good thing. Perhaps in the long run I will be healthier, but I don't want to be quite so obsessed with food and weight. Somehow I need to figure out how to put the information in the back of my mind and allow it to influence my decisions without actively focusing on it so much.

Because it isn't really each individual piece of cheesecake or splurge at Jack-in-the-Box that's going to expand my waistline. The occasional indulgence is okay. It's even okay if there's a periodic weight gain in there because of a particularly pleasant dinner. It's just not okay if one piece of cheesecake becomes five or one trip to JITB becomes once a day for two weeks.

Hopefully I'll figure out how to enjoy without overdoing it. My WeightWatchers leader does say that if you have a craving you should satisfy it.

I'm just not sure she means you should do that EVERY day...

movin' up

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:40:54 GMT

Next month I will get what I see as a very big opportunity at work. It will be interesting, to see how I handle it and how it works out. It's beginning is still weeks away and I'm already a little anxious to see how it ends!

I've been looking forward to this. I've been watching others and taking notes, trying to decide which methods I want to emulate and which I want to avoid. But putting all of the results of that observation into practice - that's the hard part.

I have faith in my ability to do well - but I can't help but worry until I actually see how it goes. I've seen so many before me struggle and stumble and, while I know I should cut myself slack and allow for that... I just don't really want to. I would much rather just get through it successfully. I'd love to exceed everyone's expectations, whatever they are.

My most recent project has been a sort of half-step in this direction and it has gone relatively well. It wasn't perfect, and I didn't really expect it to be. But this is bigger. This will be... more obvious to those around me. Others will see that this is an opportunity for me, rather than just me seeing it that way. That makes it more important - because some of those who will be watching me now, might be working for me later, and how they see this project is important in terms of how they will see me as their senior later.

It is important to me that those who are working with me as staff on projects in the future are able to feel confident in my ability to manage an engagement and their time. I don't want to just be their senior because that's what it says on the schedule - I want to be their senior because that is how they are able to use me. I don't see the staff as a resource for the senior - I see the senior as a resource to the staff. And I want to be that.

I am overthinking as usual I'm sure. But this is important to me and I want so badly for it to go well. I also think that the negativity of the other staff surrounding a similar opportunity I was given at KPMG lingers... that memory remains in the back of my mind.

Hopefully next month I can erase it. I deserve this opportunity - and I think other people see that. But it is important, at least to me, that I prove it.

Phoenix

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:54:51 GMT

I woke up this morning in a hotel room in a strange city all by myself. This is standard - external audit work lends itself to travel time. What is not so standard is the pain in my head.

My right ear feels like something behind it is broken.

Typically this would not be LiveJournal-worthy but it is still 6:30am here, no one is up and I am unsure as to what to do. I alternately want to scream at the pain and cry at the fact that I am not at home with my husband and can not wake him up and ask him to make it stop. I have attempted to work to keep my mind off of it but the database won't open which means I'm stuck on that end.

I also have a paper to write but after several failed attempts at the accursed opening paragraph I have given up on that as well.

I gave up and called my husband, crying like a little kid and annoyed at myself for doing so. He, of course, is now going to call my MIL the nurse and ask what is wrong with his crying wife who called from Phoenix and woke him up.

To be quite honest I had hoped for more in Phoenix. It seems like ever since we got here yesterday the Land of the Sun has become the Land of the Cold and Sucky. All I really want to do is pack myself back up and go back home to Tulsa.

Although now, due to this new mystery pain and some stories I've been told, I am afraid that if I did that something terrible would happen inside my ear that would cause some sort of permanent damage.

Sometimes being an adult is terrible. I wish I were at home still, where I could call my mom into my room and she would know what I should do or she would make an appointment to find out and I would never have to leave my bed. Instead I am in a city where I don't even know a doctor and would have to wander aimlessly to find someone who might be able to tell me what is going on inside my head.

On top of all of that I paid to fly out here to work - which means I should probably do that today, regardless of whether or not my body wants to cut its losses and leave my head behind.

Sigh.

Take me there.

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 22:04:53 GMT

A warning: mush ahead.

Today marks a rather unremarkable anniversary. My husband and I have been married 15 months today. Not your typical big-celebration-type anniversary, I realize, but to me it seems important.

I've been thinking about why it seems important and I think it has something to do with the last few years and the many broken relationships that I have had to leave behind during that time period. It has been difficult - I have had some very close friends who have just seemingly decided I was no longer that important to them. I did something they didn't agree with or my life changed in a direction they didn't like and they just... let me go.

So it is important to me, and worth marking I think, that my husband has not only committed to my here and now but to my future as well, whatever it brings. Regardless of the changes that come, or the mistakes that I make, he has promised to remain by my side through the ups and the downs, the twists and the turns.

In reality, that is what love is. It is just commitment. It is not romance and intimate dinners and fancy gifts. It is not kisses and lust. It is not the friends you laugh with, party with or stay up all night with. It is the security of a promise.

In reality it is rare, I think, that promise. Our society confuses love (both romantic and otherwise) with all sorts of other things. The last 15 months have taught me to strip away everything else and boil love down to that commitment - the ability to stand with someone when the stakes are high and the cards aren't in your favor.

I'm glad that at least one person in my life is really and truly willing to do just that.

Lesson Learned

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:03:00 GMT

Those who would complain, should stand up and do something about the problem at hand.

Sometimes you would be amazed at what can be solved by just speaking up to the right person.

heartbreaking.

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:21:24 GMT

Have you ever been really let down by someone that you trusted? Have you ever just felt like they kicked you in the gut? And not on accident - but KNOWING that they were doing it? Making a conscious choice to expend the effort to put a boot right under your ribs?

Maybe I am too trusting. I feel like that right now. Here. In this moment. I have had some moments over the past few years where I suspected it was a possibility. But now I'm getting to the point where I really see it.

I just expect people to do what they say they're going to. And I guess - another part of this problem, is that I don't usually confront them when they don't. I go away and lick my wounds in private and then come back to play like nothing happened.

I'm going to have to stop doing that.

Common Courtesy

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:30:24 GMT

I find this phrase really interesting. Common Courtesy. According to www.m-w.com (you knew that was coming), the following definitions are applicable to this phrase:

Common: just satisfying accustomed criteria (as in common decency)

Courtesy: consideration, cooperation, and generosity in providing something (as a gift or privilege)

This is what I find interesting - we put these two together to talk about a sort of nebulous set of social standards having to do with being polite to one another. And yet the two appear to be completely at odds. In this instance, we are saying that common is something that we should just do - we're just satisfying the minimum criteria set by society as acceptable. But with courtesy, we appear to be saying that we are being generous, we are giving consideration, we are providing a gift or privilege.

It doesn't make sense. And that makes my argument make sense (interesting how that worked out - completely unintentional I assure you. I'm not that good).

See, what inspired this entry is a frustration I have had with this idea of common courtesy. Because it's really not common at all. Everyone has different standards of what they think is acceptable - some say 'Bless you' at a sneeze and some ignore it. Some wait for their friends and family to reach the door, the car, etc. before driving off and some don't.

Basically I was just going to rant about how annoying I think the whole situation is but when I look at the actual definitions of the words I'm using, the confusion makes perfect sense.

It is difficult, when you see something as minimally acceptable, as just-plain-polite and someone else just doesn't. It is easy to see them as rude or at the very least inconsiderate - and they don't understand that at all. Because to them, they have done nothing wrong.

Relationships are difficult for many reasons - and I think this is one of them. So often a clash of personalities really boils down to a conflict in expectations. I expect that you will, at the very least, behave in such-and-such manner. You don't have that same expectation for yourself, and I am left disappointed and frustrated. And you have absolutely no clue you've done anything wrong.

I'm not sure I know what to do about that. What is the answer? How, then, should we interact with one another? How do we determine what our expectations are, and when it is acceptable for those expectations NOT to be met?

Hell if I know.

don't laugh at me.

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 15:53:14 GMT

I was on my way to work this morning (yes, I realize it's a Saturday, depressing huh?) and I heard this song for the first time in a very long time. It's a touching country song that has made me cry pretty much every time I've heard it since it came out (at some point in the 90's).

I was never a popular kid. I finally got the cool kids to leave me alone in... well MOSTLY in high school. But elementary, middle school... *shiver*. So this song has always moved me to tears mainly because it dredges up old and ugly memories.

But now it has another meaning - as much as I hate it, my brother gets it worse these days than I ever did.

Kids are mean - and in reality, a lot of adults are mean too. I still get laughed at pretty regularly but I would gladly take far more punishment if it would earn my brother some modicum of peace.

It is so strange to me how the initial human reaction to someone who is perceived as different is so negative. Even as children, our natural instinct seems to be to lash out at that person and make them 'pay' for being the way that they are. To try to shame them into some sort of conformity.

It's so horrifying to me to think about my brother's daily experiences at school and what they must be like. I want so badly for him to feel happy, to find friends and to feel accepted. My heart just breaks to think about how those kids make him feel.

My parents are looking into taking him back to Dallas and putting him in a school with more resources and more experience with high-functioning autistic children. I hope that helps. I hope that, in a more supportive environment, he is able to find acceptance and build some social confidence.

I hope so much it hurts.

Procreation Prohibition

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 22:08:30 GMT

We've all met them. They can be sweet-natured, kind individuals or they can be downright bane-of-my-existence type acquaintances. Sometimes they're smart people and sometimes we're amazed they've even made it through life to this point.

But when word comes that they've chosen to create mini walking replicas of themselves, regardless of their disposition or intelligence level, the reaction is the same.

Dammit.

Now, I'm not an advocate of mass sterilization, though I have to admit I have heard convincing arguments in support of such a move. But there are just some people that should be, at the very least, strongly urged NOT to have children. Not necessarily because they're bad people, but because some good people end up having absolutely terrible children.

(Secretly I'm forced to hope that I'm not one of these people to someone else.)

In the past few years I have grown to absolutely love kids. I love babies and I love children and I always want to love on them and play with them. And so it is difficult for me to say this because I fear it sounds like I'm saying 'Perhaps it would be best if this problem-child had been avoided.' I don't want to say that. I want to say that everyone deserves to have a shot at life - regardless of whether or not they start out as a demon child.

What I really want I guess, is better parenting. If you're going to have a child, your focus is no longer you, it is your child. There are too many parents out there who just don't seem to believe that. And the result is the horrible little terrors they produce as offspring.

And it scares me - because I'm sure I'm not going to be a perfect parent, and I want more than anything to produce loving, happy children.

So maybe I should be glad that I've got some bad examples to use as 'what not to do' type role models. But I feel for their children. And I'd rather not have the bad role models and have sweet-faced cherubs to love on instead.

malcontent.

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 00:19:30 GMT

Main Entry: mal·con·tent
Pronunciation: \ˌmal-kən-ˈtent\
Function: noun
Date: 1581
: a discontented person: a: one who bears a grudge from a sense of grievance or thwarted ambition b: one who is in active opposition to an established order or government : rebel

(Many thanks, as always, to Merriam Webster, via www.m-w.com, for the above.)

I would not have, in the past, considered myself to be in any way described by the word 'malcontent'. In recent months, however, I have begun to search the depths of my internal frustrations and this is the word that comes most quickly to mind.

When I look at the actual definition, it is actually surprisingly on-target.

As much as I hate to admit it, I do think I bear a bit of a 'grudge from a sense of grievance or thwarted ambition.' Those of you who know me best will know why. It is something that I have long fought - telling myself that people do what they feel is best, they try to do what is right, and that to bear a grudge is silly and unfruitful.

Doesn't make it go away though.

In reality, it doesn't matter what I tell myself about why or why it's okay. The truth comes back to a feeling of deep-seated frustration, a touch of anger, and a growing tendency towards rebellion and reaction. A strong, and slightly bitter, wish to assert myself as what I actually am, and not as the people-pleasing facade I have always shown to others.

Part of this stems from the realization, over the past two years, that allowing yourself to be walked on and passed over doesn't necessarily win you esteem or even gratitude. It doesn't win you anything. You feel as if you've become what you hate, and in the end no one cares or is thankful for what you've attempted to do or your motivations for doing it. So the point of doing it... is lost.

I think the point of doing it for me was always to follow the path of least resistance. I wanted to be what other people wanted me to be because it meant I wasn't a disappointment. But in the end, it has made me a disappointment to myself and the resultant frustration and bitterness I'm sure makes me a disappointment to others.

But it doesn't seem like steps I attempt to take to place me back on track actually get me very far.

I think I want more than is truly possible. I want to be accepted for what I am, and in reality that may never happen. So the choice is this: I either accept being something I do not enjoy, to keep others at least... somewhat happy, or I choose to accept that they won't like it and move forward on a path to be more like what I want to be.

What a crappy set of options.

I find myself so frustrated that people can't accept me for what I AM. I have always been called 'the odd one'. I have been ridiculed for those things which I have the deepest passions for. And I am SO TIRED of it.

I just want to be able to relax into myself and not worry over what people will say or think. I want to be able to pursue my passions, for once, and not be diswayed from that which matters most.

So many people tell me that life isn't perfect and that most people don't like their jobs and that I should accept it. Why is that? There are tons of people out there who do what they love and love what they do. Why is it so outrageous that I would rather be one of them than one of the many who hate going to work every day?

To me that just doesn't seem like asking that much.

I think I'm just going to have to focus on getting myself to where I feel happy with the life I am living, from all angles, and not worry about other people liking it. I hate that - I want to have support. But... if it comes down to a choice...

I'll take happiness standing alone before I accept misery with a group.