Because it’s Friday AGAIN. And because traditions are important. In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
So Selma and I spent half the week in San Francisco.
Which means we are entitled to spend at least half of the Friday Chicken kvetching about it covering it.
There was good. There was hard.
There was hard that turned into good.
It was a lot of week this week, is all I’m saying.
And some of it happened in San Francisco. So if you get bored of hearing about that part, know that I’ll be completely over it by next week. 🙂
The hard stuff
San Francisco.
Somehow I had entirely forgotten how San Francisco is full of [insert stream of expletives here] people who are crazy.
Completely, irrevocably [insert more cussing] crazy.
Which is funny, because whenever someone asks me why I don’t live in San Francisco anymore, the first answer is always that I had to get away from all the [bleeped out] crazy.
The second answer is that if I’m already going to pay that much for rent I’d move to Paris where the [***********************] crazy people are at least being crazy in French.
Of course there is also lots I love (and miss) about San Francisco. And of course it is also the magical place where I met my gentleman friend after getting a (cough, crazy) vision that I needed to move there from Berlin.
But man.
That city! And the sheer number of people who are ….
… seriously unbalanced.
Sometimes scary unbalanced and sometimes “oh, isn’t that charming for the first ten minutes” unbalanced, but it’s a lot to take.
A lot of mental and emotional energy goes to just filtering it out. Challenging.
All my stuff coming up.
There was actually kind of a sneakified thing I wanted to do while purportedly coming to town to a. teach a workshop and b. throw a fabulous birthday surprise weekend for my gentleman friend.
My Israeli passport is expired.
And not even recently expired.
I haven’t been home in almost five years. Even though when I left it was supposed to be just for … I don’t know how long. A few months? A year at most?
Anyway.
I’m going in October and need a new passport. And since it is basically impossible to get anyone at the Consulate to pick up a phone or call you back or anything, and I wasn’t sure I had the right papers …
Well, I knew I could sort that out in person while we were in San Francisco*.
But it totally brought up a lot of unfinished, unresolved gunk for me. And — as if that weren’t enough — you should have seen the awful, awful passport photos.
*If you’re thinking, “Wait, didn’t you already sort this out?” … the answer is no. And also that I don’t want to talk about it.
The worst passport pictures in the history of terrible passport pictures.
I know that no one looks good under fluorescent lights standing next to a pale screen in a dubious-looking Walgreens.*
*Yes, this qualified as an emergency situation and I broke my box-store-boycott. Ugh.
But these photos were spectacularly bad. It was outrageous how unattractive I looked.
Even my gentleman friend, who tends to think that I always look stunning even when that is demonstrably untrue, agreed that these were truly horrendous and distorted photos and that I looked deranged.
Ugh.
Going back to work.
Admittedly, things have gotten a lot better.
I mean, a year ago there was no way in hell you could have gotten me to do four days without being all internet-ed up.
And if you had? Coming back to four days of piled up work would have sent me into weeks of panicked horribleness and lovely emotional breakdown stuff.
So yes, this is better.
But it was still super hard. So much to catch up on.
So much crap. So many little misunderstandings or things-gone-slightly-wrong.
And then someone had to cancel (I know) for the North Carolina workshop* and I am not in the mood to write another personal ad to fill that spot.
*It says it’s sold out but now it’s not! If you want that last spot, please talk to Marissa! She’ll totally let you do the Early Bird thing since that was the spot that opened up.
Very stressful. Very tiring. And now I’m really ready for all the catch-up to be done.
The good stuff
San Francisco!
We went to our favorite haunts. We saw our friends.
We watched the Bay from the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien. We sang pirate chanteys on the Balclutha.
We had brunch with Casey and her sweet, wonderful husband Dave.
Selma and I got to have dinner with a bunch of my Bay Area Kitchen Table people (and they bought me a pirate dress!)
And there was lots of good walking, lots of good food and lots of happy nostalgic “good to be back”-ness.
Plus, my gentleman friend was seriously elated. And happy gentleman friend = yay.
A total freaking miracle with my Israeli passport.
I came up with a VPA (Very Personal Ad) asking for a perfect, simple solution to my passport-related worries. And?
It turned out that yes, I did have the wrong paperwork.
And also that I could extend my passport for another year and so I didn’t have to renew it!
Which means that I didn’t have to pay sixty dollars. And I didn’t have to put it in the mail and worry about it for a month or two. And I didn’t have to show anyone those horrible, horrible passport photos.
Ah, yes. They have been destroyed. And that, my friends, is good news for everyone involved.
Also, even though I arrived at the consulate five minutes before they closed, they were weirdly cool about it. Awesome.
The workshop.
So. Much. Fun.
I pretty much always get bright, interesting people in the classes I teach, but this group was exceptional.
Seriously amazing people there. It was an honor to be there and do wackiness with them.
Happy!
And … new at the meme beach house!
Yes, that’s a Stuism too.
My brother and I have this thing where we come up with ridiculous band names and then say in this really pretentious, knowing tone, “Oh, well, you know, it’s just one guy.” This week?
Spunky Asphalt
Me: “Are you familiar with Spunky Asphalt?
Ez: “Dude. It’s your own spunky-ass fault.”
Me: “Oh, is that what they’re called?
Ez: “Uh, it’s just one guy.”
And … STUISMS of the week.
Stu is my paranoid McCarthy-ist voice-to-text software who delights in torturing me misunderstanding me. I can’t stand him.
My favorite this week?
When I was trying to tell him where to put in the header tags for someone else to format my post. And inside of the angle brackets instead of H1 he wrote “each one“. Moron.
Anyway, the gems from this week:
- sorrier things instead of “saw your thing”
- at sea instead of “Etsy” (this isn’t all that funny, but it’s funnier if you’re a pirate queen.)
- Water kind of Niece can I back? instead of “What kind of epiphanies can I expect?”
- will always lift you to the thing you need the Maoist instead of “will always give you the thing you need the most”
- Oh. Aaron S. instead of “awareness”
- back to y’all forwarding my tender he instead of “that you will forward me my itinerary”
- on the bazaar illustrated Offense instead of “in a bizarre and a miraculous turn of events”
That’s it for me …
And yes yes yes, of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments bit if you feel like it.
Yeah? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?
And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious weekend. And a happy week to come.
Follow
First?! wow.
The Hard: Allergies. Sneezing. Ick. Insomnia. Corporations. ‘nough said about those.
The good: spending time with my heart-sister and pseudo-nephew. Actually painting. Finishing a yarn project. Accomplished lots in the day job.
G. Romillys last blog post..Creativity tip: Make Art with Kids
Is it me or does STU keep getting funnier? Maoist? Really, Mr voice to text software? I don’t know how, but I think he’s in league with that phone somehow. They’re conspiring you know.
And hurray for the Chicken! Are you ready? You sure? Cuz I got some hard.
I worked out on Tuesday that my little business (comics and illustration) was probably never going to make any money. Since it takes up too much time and effort to be an enjoyable hobby, I decided it would be more sensible to quit.
It wasn’t even me having a fit and throwing my toys at the wall. It was a pretty rational consideration. In the end I thought my way around to looking at it differently and reminded myself to be patient, and reworked the numbers until they showed a better picture. But a lingering suspicion that this might never work remains. And it sucks.
Then there was the colleague/friend who had ordered some kids shirts with a design by me. Presented with the shirts (which she liked) and the price (which I’ll admit was high) she gave them back to me and said “I’ll have to think about it.” As if there was anything I could do with the shirts except sell them to her. She has the five year old, not me.
In the end she agreed to pay half of what I’d asked, leaving me out of pocked and very upset. For a long time, she was my only friend in work, and I look up to her because she’s been to art school and seen the world (at least, I think that’s why, I’m not really sure). And I thought she wanted to support me and my artsy stuff, but apparently she didn’t expect to pay more for the shirts I designed for her than she would pay for mass-produced shirts in a shop. I don’t understand that.
And I can’t even bring myself to let her know how angry and upset I am. It’s a total mess.
There was also good though:
Yoga! I’ve been doing more non-sucky yoga than ever, and although the first couple of poses in the hips series still have me cursing and spitting (fsckgrr Dragon!!) it’s been such a joy and a comfort this week. I love having this quiet space to visit, where I don’t have to be in my own way or worry about stuff. I guess there’s really no need to be quite so much in my own way the rest of the time, but… well, working on that one.
I’ve been digging around in the fluent self archives, and came across an old post where Havi recommends being a habits detective, and imagine being this detective character. The only real detectives I could come up with were Gumshoe and Wright from the Ace Attorney games, and they didn’t really fit the bill; Gumshoe is incompetent, Wright blufs and stumbles his way into discoveries (huh, actually, maybe that IS appropriate).
But then, for some reason, I thought of the current Dr Who, who is *perfect*. I apologise to those who don’t know Dr Who (no really, I’m sorry) but I know Randomling at least will get this. He’s curious, trouble excites him, and when presented with dangerous, monstrous aliens he has this way of saying, “It’s all right, I’m the Docter. Just tell me what you need.” From now on, I will have no one else represent me when I talk to monsters. Best idea ever.
And how cool was that when Havi was like “Aaargh! Everything is going to hell!” and there was this outpouring of “oh no, poor you” from all of us and it was just RAINING sympathy. *I* felt comforted by it, and I wasn’t even in the rain. That was awesome, guys.
Awesome.
More sympathy rain for your hard stuff, and joy for your good stuff.
@Willie- Wow. The Doctor IS perfect for that! Wish I’d thought of it. Mind if I borrow him from time to time, too? 🙂
G. Romillys last blog post..Creativity tip: Make Art with Kids
The hard: a bunch of…
A really bad ME day. I cried in front of my boss. Quite a bad M.E. week all in all. Ugh. Emotions and denial and hurt and more tired that I could deal with and I just cried and cried and cried.
Confusion at work – what contract to take? what’s on offer? Having to make a decision. Not so bad but still hard to trust myself.
Rain, bloody rain. Too, too much of it. It’s supposed to be summer for goodness sakes.
The good: A HUGE bunch of…
Spending time with favourite people.
Chocolate cake for breakfast.
My sister going into labour this morning *at last*. Having new people in my life be completely amazing about me having M.E. instead of running away screaming like I imagined.
Work, letting me work from home so I could sort out doctor stuff.
Having contracts to *decide* between – I’m a wanted commodity – hurrah!
Plus this weekend is totally going to rock – I shall be an auntie by the time it’s out and I get to spend time with favourite people again.
Wormys last blog post..I have a Dominatrix in my shoulder blades.
@Willie Thank you (!) for the doctor as detective. It’s brilliant. Had used Marlowe, but his answers for dealing with hard things is often “f it and go sleep with the femme fatale”. “Run!” seems much more useful when there’s not an obvious solution.
Ugh, I skipped last week’s chicken specifically *because* of the below “hard”…
The hard: last thursday I managed to get off the train and faceplant onto the gravel-and-asphault parking lot. Swollen lips, cuts on my nose and around my mouth, both hands torn to shreds. I had to call in sick to work the next day, because I could barely type and absolutely could not use a mouse. Plus looked really, really bad.
BUT!
The good: I somehow managed to barely do anything to my knees, which had the nice side-effect that *none* of my clothing was damaged in the fall (a small miracle, if you know me). I didn’t break my teeth, my nose, or any bones (and since I landed right on my face, I have *no idea* how I managed that). A very nice lady at the train station called her very nice brother and they gave me a ride home (and I’d like the Universe to reward Valerie and Ralph, OK?). My mother went out and bought me *pudding* so I had somethign tasty to eat without chewing. My face is now almost completely healed, and my hands itch like anything but that means they’re healing too.
Laura Gs last blog post..Help us pick our wedding song — Round 4
Havi, hugs for the hard, and yay for the good that happened for you this week. Israeli passport extension–yay! Sucky passport photos–boo and hugs.
Hard this week:
Still itchy from hives, although much better than last week. And because the sun aggravates them, I haven’t been out walking as much.
My best friend’s dad is dying. I wish I could do more to help–it’s such a painful, tender time for her.
Good this week:
Yesterday I got together with my wonderful cellist friend Alannah. We played all afternoon recording a guided meditation (by me) woven together with improvised cello and chant (by her). The actual recording will have to be done in a studio, but we had so much fun noodling around with this.
One of my personal ads has been about creating collaborations with people who are as skilled at what they do as I am, and who have similar values of soul and heart. So this was the answer to a prayer, and was sheer delight.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. Havi, thank you for the Friday Chicken–it’s so good to have this space to share, commiserate with each other and celebrate the week.
Love, Hiro
Hiro Bogas last blog post..Playing With Time
O.K., first, I heard this on NPR *this morning*!:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105493350&ft=1&f=1004 And immediately thought of you!!
“Morning Edition, July 17, 2009 – The Mexico City-based Mexican Institute of Sound consists not of an “institute,” or even a band. It’s just one man , Camilo Lara. Lara amuses himself by using the name “Mexican Institute of Sound.” In Spanish, the initials are almost the same as the Mexican Institute of Health — the most bureaucratic institution he could think of.”
Awesome.
This week:
The hard– Struggling with keeping myself balanced. Saturday would have been the wedding day– to absolutely the wrong guy. So good, I guess, but still very very hard. I feel like I don’t know how to “do” relationships (even after 8 months of introspection 😛 ), and am worried and quadruple-guessing what is going on in my very, very new relationship.
The dog is a bit crazy. Nothing new, but her fear of(and deceptively ferocious barking at)the unknown, unusual and small children….makes me wonder if she picks up my fears. (not afraid of kids, 🙂 but afraid of what my dog might do kind of thing.)She is so sweet and lovey, once she knows you.
The good:
One of my very best friends had a son. How beautiful, and how much better can you get for a good week.
On the other end of the age scale, the week started out with a return from my grandmother’s 94th birthday. Aunties and cousins gave little speeches, she gave everyone a beautiful copy of her memoirs of growing up in rural Minnesota, and when asked for words of wisdom, said in the most upbeat and chirpy, encouraging way, “Don’t Be Afraid!” It was what I needed to hear and those simple words will stay with me, I have a feeling, when I need them the most.
“Asphalt” was code for a** crack when my kids were little. I was quite the popular mom at camp as you can imagine, teaching the little ones swear words that weren’t quite swear words (no I did not invent Stu, funny as he is and as much credit as it would be fun to take for some of his Stu-isms) 😉
The Hard:
Leaving Izzy at camp yesterday. He left ok on Sunday, sounded fine on Tuesday when he called, but last night he was sobbing when we got on the shuttle bus. He comes home tomorrow. But still hard hard hard.
Seeing footage of the aftermath from the tanker explosion at I-75 and 696 in Michigan. That is the interchange we use when going home, and I am very familiar with the area. So grateful no one was severely injured.
The Good:
Rediscovering a treasure trove of beads in my studio and having fun all week making new jewelry with them.
Finding out that I did win an award in the Ohio State Fine Arts competition this year. (statement due no later than Tuesday! eee! and yay!)
TV lite is extending to the family; they no longer automatically turn it on now. And the studio has been a place of quiet contemplation and creation.
Blueberries.
A bumper sticker at camp yesterday, reminding me that “you have not because you ask not” and then a Daily Om today on basically the same subject. So I am asking, as scary as it is. 🙂
I’m glad the passport situation was worked out so effortlessly. Thank you again for the opportunity to share chicken with you all!
Andis last blog post..Ain’t We Got Fun
I missed last week, so I am here today. I LOVE the idea of the Doctor coming to talk to my monsters. Now I have to get my Tardis USB port. When I need The Doctor, I’ll just push the button and hear the Tardis coming to my rescue (the light even lights up!).
The hard: working on dissolving procrastination. It’s getting better. Not sleeping Tuesday night and feeling horrible all day Wednesday. I missed what looked to be a really good networking event. Boo! Hiss!
The good: working on dissolving procrastination. I finally got in the logistics for my workshop. I wrote four pages of a sample chapter for my book proposal. And I got back to the 31 Days to a Better Blog Workbook. I also went to yoga class for the first time in months and absolutely adored it! On the way back from yoga I did a little dancing at Dancing in the Park. I also made phone calls to close up repairs on my house in Kansas City and get it rented. So much of what I put off turned out to be fairly easy and take minutes (like the worksheet and phone calls). Why did I let them hang over my head for so long?
Shawna R. B. Atteberrys last blog post..RevGal Friday Five: GAMES!
Good thing I *didn’t* sacrifice a Chicken.
@Shawna – wow. That is a HUGE amount of formward progress. Nice!
@Willie – oh, yes. The Doctor. Good call. And sorry about the sucky sucky hard. Ugh.
@Andi – I second blueberries! Oooh, and you get Michigan cherries too. Swoon!
@Ingrid – ohmygod thank you for my first big laugh of the day. Just one guy! I love it.
@Laura G – oh no oh no oh no. That sounds horribly painful. So sorry. And thank goodness for pudding.
You guys: are all the best. I love that no matter how weird any given week is, I can come here and chicken it up and that somehow makes it better.
Havi – so glad to hear you pulled of the surprise for your gentleman friend!
Thank goodness it is Friday.
The hard:
– Our beloved kitty spent way too much time at the vet hospital this week. She has chronic kidney failure and now only weighs 3.5 pounds (used to way 10+ in her prime). Breaks my heart when she looks at us with that “please fix me humans – you’ve always fixed me before” look. Feel utterly helpless. She’s been at the vet since Wednesday morning getting IV fluids to buy us some time. She gets to come home tonight. Lots of hugs await her. Every moment is precious. We don’t know how many more moments there will be.
– My concentration is totally shot due to the kitty crisis
– My sleep quality is totally shot too
The good:
– An awesome afternoon spent with my most favorite department chair – we went to a play – it made us laugh a lot! The conversation driving there and back was also good. She’s an energy giver unlike my boss who is an energy taker.
– A tremendous joint teaching experience Wednesday night. We redesigned a key course in our curriculum and it went REALLY well. The skills that the other instructor and I bring to the class mesh really well. No ego issues, just a high quality class for our students.
– A decent interaction with my goofy boss this morning. I haven’t seen him in 3 months (yes, you read that right). He’s very much all about himself, but was a little less self-centered this morning so we actually had some productive discussions for once.
Thank you everyone for being here! I live for the Friday Chicken!
Good: got two new clients this week.
Hard: while meeting new client got kicked out of Starbucks for not ordering anything. WTF?!
Good: started lifting weights again.
Hard: rather sore.
But mostly it’s good. I won’t be back to THAT Starbucks again!
Barbara J Carters last blog post..Some Good Press
I just wanted to mention how funny the Stuism is this week, with “back to y’all”… I never knew Stu to have an accent? (I use Macspeech dictate too and I’ve never seen such a slangy sentence.) Very funny though. 🙂
Oh, and I really miss San Francisco now. Thanks Havi. 😛 Jusssttt kidding! Still love you. 🙂
Nathalie Lussiers last blog post..13 Witchy Ways Green Smoothies Help You Feel Great All In Less Than 13 Minutes
First, big hugs to Havi for her post yesterday, which I didn’t have time to read until today. Big hugs — hug-and-a-halfs (like those Chair-and-a-halfs).
And big gratitude to Havi and Selma for the amazing San Francisco workshop. More on that in the Good. And thank you so much for coming and sharing your wonderful self and wonderful work.
The Hard
–Big technology snafu at work yesterday which I had no control over, but still got wound up about and had to do damage control around. Just another reminder from the universe that this is not where I’m meant to be.
–My mom’s phone is out. This sounds really minor, but hear me out. She’s 82. She’s alone (my dad died 5 years ago). She doesn’t understand technology and doesn’t understand that when she switched to cable phone she has to have both cable and electricity working for her to have phone service. The phone has been out all week. The cable company is run by morons — I have tried to help but to no avail. I hate not being able to reach my mom. She has a cell phone, but can’t get the volume on the ringer loud enough to hear it, or the speaker volume loud enough to hear someone talking, so I spent part of my days shouting into my phone so she could hear me on the cell phone. Ugh. But the worst part is she’s 2000 miles away, I can’t fix this for her, she’s lonely and overwhelmed and it’s just hard. hard to be this far away. Hard to see her get worked up over something like this because if I was there I could fix it, or at least take it off her plate. Hard because it’s really hard to watch your Mom get old and scared and be lonely. Just hard.
The Good
–Well, Havi’s San Fran Workshop. Good is not the right adjective, but words fail anyway. Such an amazing group of women. Such amazing stuff, that Shiva Nata. Just a wonderous three hours that have had a huge impact on my life this week, f’rinstance:
–I wrote my first blog post this week. After 6 months of gathering topics/post ideas on Google docs, I finally wrote my first one. Didn’t publish it yet. Not quite there yet, but soon. This was major for me. I went from thinking about doing to doing and the energy has shifted. I now know it’s going to happen for me. The blog. I can hear the overture . . . it’s begun.
–I am loving Guys and Dolls rehearsal. It feels so good to be an actor, in a community of other actors, to get to sing and dance and play and just be me. 100% me. Lovely.
–I have gotten better at asking for what I want and need. Major strides there.
Big hugs all around to everyone here, and thanks for the Chicken.
I have not even got around to reading any comments but Willie’s. I have to say, Willie, OH MY GOD YOU ARE A GENIUS. The Doctor is the best monster-representative ever! Not because he stops the monsters, so much as he listens to them, and if they have a reasonable concern, he tries to find a good balance between helping them and not having them destroy whichever planet he’s on.
You are so clever!
OK, back to reading the rest of the comments. 😀
Lucy Viret (aka randomling)s last blog post..On the stories I tell myself.
Hm, and now for my chicken.
The hard this week:
-Admitting that I’m having a hard time coping. The depression is BACK and it’s rampaging around my life hurting things. Not fun for me.
-Also, it being so bad that I felt the need to ask my doctor to give me two weeks’ medical leave.
-The worst “symptom” of depression for me: finding it really, really hard to prepare any food for myself that isn’t bread and butter. Not good for me. ARGH.
And the good:
-I got the medical leave! THANK GOD.
-Saw friends two nights this week, which I really needed.
-Lots of love and support coming to me via the interwebs, too (many and various channels).
Lucy Viret (aka randomling)s last blog post..On the stories I tell myself.
My Bad:
Freaked out about new car problem that will have to be addressed ASAP. Car is all but toast.
Appointment with a new doctor, who asked me intimate, personal history questions while sitting with his back to me the entire time. I felt like turning my chair around so our backs were facing each other. Very demoralizing to be in a place where you’re supposed to be heard, but not feeling listened to at all.
My Good:
Feeling positive about myself!
Making good progress on dissertation.
Met nutritional and exercise goals and feel healthy and strong.
Recognizing that peace of mind was more important than riding out the crap that is my old 1993 car. Bought a new used car!!! It is practical and basic, but it feels extravagant and fancy.
Learning that I deserve extravagant and fancy.
Hello peoples.
The Ugly:
I had to tell someone “No” Monday. Spent most of the rest of the day trying to be ok with it. It’s now Friday and I’m still feeling guilty.
The Bad:
I started a blog on Wednesday. The blog itself is a good thing. My reaction after making my first post, not so good. Within 20 min my abdomen had exploded in a mass of cramps. It hurt so bad I thought my appendix or an overian cyst might have ruptured. I was up most of the night because of the pain and I’m still feeling off.
The Good:
I started a blog Wednesday. I’ve been thinking about blogging for a couple of years now. I’ve gotten pretty close to actually starting a few times but ended up running frantically the other direction each time. I’ve decided to continue though there were several times in the hours after my first post that I almost ran to the computer to delete it. I’ll just take it slow and work through the issues one post at a time. I’m pretty tired of being such a scardy cat.
No…I’m not going to give out the address. Someone might actually read it. How scary would that be?
The hard: We didn’t get the loan we needed for me to keep working on the business full-time, so I need to get a proper, full-time job ASAP. I’ll have to put Sorted on the back burner. I’m getting used to it, and I think it’ll ultimately be for the best, but for a couple of days there whenever I’d see happy, believe-in-yourself Tweets, I’d give my monitor a look of purest disgust.
The good: Went out to dinner with a bunch of former co-workers last night, and enjoyed being with them. Never want to work at a company like that ever, ever again, but it was nice to see the people.
Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!
Catherine Cantieri, Sorteds last blog post..Freeing up electronic space
I’m on vacation, so you get a mini-chicken:
– Hard shoes thrown that hit home ouch, project scrapped. Good that it frees up a lot of time & mental energy to do other things that I will enjoy a lot more.
– Hard money stuff. Good finding people to buy art to fund vacation.
– Hard guest flight delays. Good having guests at all!
– Hard feeling a bit icky all week, physically. Good that it’s mild ick, and I can still vacation with the best of ’em.
– Good vacation vacation seeing friends vacation yay. Clean house! Vacation!!
♥
Amy Crooks last blog post..Private Myths
Havi, wow, your week! madness. Bravo for how you manage and get through it all so gracefully.
Lets see… the hard:
my job, and feeling like I should be doing something more. I’m frustrated with being an admin. AGAIN…
I haven’t heard from my family in several weeks. I never know if it is an intentional ‘tough love’ silence.
realized I need my home to feel more like MY home, safer and somewhere I can let my guard down. I haven’t let myself settle in.
The GOOD!
Ordered my Shiva Nata kit. I have been learning the basic positions while waiting on the DVD and even those feel amazing. I’m feeling muscles stretch that I never knew needed it. lots of nice warm fuzzy relief. Also, so much of it is exactly what I need and works in my comfort zone. 5-10 minutes in the morning? YES! I CAN do that. Learning the meditation does not need to be a half hour ordeal was nice too. Somewhere along the way I got the wrong idea about what meditation is/can be. 🙂 so excited for the DVD!
Feeling more hopeful and energized and motivated than I have in about 2 years. And it is different this time. Feels more whole somehow. Discovering the idea of ‘stuckness’and that I can just be with it and be with myself has changed my world view. I can feel that solid, deep ‘I like myself’ confidence creeping back in and, just WOW. seriously. HUGE GOOD.
I completed a nude figurative sculpture for a co-worker. It is the first figure I’ve sculpted in 7 years, since I left the art program at OU and my apprenticeship under a master monumental sculptor. I have been frozen in fear since then about doing that kind of work. Completing this project is a giant accomplishment for me. I’m not thrilled with the outcome, its nothing special, but I feel fantastic that I loved making it. I enjoyed the work! also HUGE
*the sculpture is from a photo that has been a long running joke amongst friends for years. I just found out
the man in the photo will be coming by the office today! I’ve been staring at his butt dimples and deciding what size his *ahem* umm ‘business’ might be for weeks. ahhahaha should be an entertaining encounter
Hard: an accident similar to Laura G’s, above (I’m so sorry to read it!!! Hope you are feeling better!!) — not nearly as bad, but my writing hand was very bruised and is only now becoming functional again — couldn’t type at work, couldn’t play the horn, couldn’t write, couldn’t do Shiva Nata, couldn’t open doors/use a fork/spray perfume with that hand, etc.
A family member moved out of state.
Work was vexing.
The good: well, boy, do I appreciate all the work that hands can do when they’re healthy. And infact my hand is healing and I can type, turn the car’s ignition key, pick up a bottle of water, and a few other small achievements.
I am excited for my family member’s new start in life, and of course I get to go visit!!
At work I figured out how to save someone else a TON of work and time — so they were very happy, and I felt good that I could help.
I love your weekly Stuisms. I try to guess what you really said before reading the last half of the sentence. Totally cracks me up. I’m easy to please.
Just wanted to stop by to let you know, the personal ad thing totally works. I put one up this weekend on my very personal blog asking for a largish item that was causing me a lot of stress. I mean, lack of having that item was worsening my quality of life and causing daily stress, not the thought of acquiring it or that item specifically.
Anyway, it came naturally and easily in the way I most desired in 4 days. Holey moley, batman! I’m way happy! Now I’ll be posting ads for everything, hee hee.
Naomi Niless last blog post..Introducing BluePrint Balance.com
The Hard:
No rain for the third week. Things are drying up.
Confronting actually leaving the job and tying up loose ends I should have closed off earlier; getting through by just setting the timer and doing them.
Confronting the big change I’m making in my life (and my wife’s life) by doing school full-time. I’d rather have an MFA in creative writing — that would be more fun — but I also have fun doing the scholarly research thing. But but but.
Trying to talk to my monsters re the tinnitus in my head and, really, what is this pattern that makes me fear for my future? What is it they’re trying to protect me from?
To bed late every night, which meant up late in the morning, late to work, late to return home, etc. A bad cycle.
Having to fill out W-4 forms and ick for my research job at the school in the fall. Always nervous about filling out bureaucratic forms.
The Good:
Closing off loose ends at work frees up trapped energy. Also, damn it, they didn’t take as long as I feared they would.
Took today off of work to take the bus from our town to where the college is, as an experiment to see if I can use public transportation instead of driving. We wound up having a great outing.
Continued progress on the lit review.
Good evening out with friends and a good meeting of the group I’m the pres of.
Found the John Jorgenson Quintet’s “Ghost Dance” on Youtube and have been playing it once a day. Just thrilling.
Mikes last blog post..Link harvest
My first time trying this…
The Hard Stuff:
-totally swamped with work. learning/rehearsing 2 shows to be performed in the same weekend + recording.
-trying to keep time to work on my own music
-not eating properly because I forget to eat when I’m so busy
-getting behind on little tasks
The Good Stuff:
-hanging out with my friend’s hilarious kids for an afternoon
-playing guitar with my friend Joey… just for fun (rather than a rehearsal)
-watching Golden Girls in my spare time (well, “spare time” means “dinner time”)
-getting some work through twitter!
-checking out my friend’s fabulous new renovated pad
-running in the mornings with my girlfriend
-having some amazing breakfasts cooked for me by my lovely girlfriend
-replacing the “ding” of my girlfriend’s email alert to a fart sample, which makes us laugh about 10 times/day
-meeting and playing with some great musicians
-contributing my version of the Moonwalk to an awesome site called Eternal Moonwalk.
The hard–
insomnia. again. like Andi, i had a few minutes of terror during the tanker fire on 75 until i was sure my husband was still at work.
The good–
insomnia has given me time to hop around links here and read some super interesting stuff. i took kelly’s 16 questions and wrote a bio. i learned a neat visualization about time. i read about Hamlet and Prom. And comment karma.
*grin*
everyone is so SMART! and i love it!
melissas last blog post..Walking Meditation 7/16
Hey Havi:
Wow – what a week for you dear! How cool that you surprised your gentleman friend with such a great trip.
The Great:
-the a/c problem in my house was resolved by asking some neighbors for help. found a great solution
-sleeping again: nothing like that!!
-reading a phenomenal book
The Less Great:
-no running water
-think i’m getting an ear infection.
@Char – oh no! Ear infection! Oyvavoy. Sending you love for that (and sleep).
@Christine – hi! And thinking about you and your girlfriend cracking up whenever she gets email totally made me laugh too. That’s awesome.
@everyone else – you guys you guys you guys! I love reading everyone’s chickens. Thank you for this – it makes doing it so much more fun. Yay.
Wow. This is my third attempt to do the chicken and I keep being foiled by my extra smart and helpful phone and computer. I’ll KISS it this time.
The good:
Brunch with amazing friends, secured a temp gig, spent quality time with the hippy husband, and made some good progress with the ship’s storeroom and people.
The hard:
Owowowie – ankle still sucks and I stepped in cat puke.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! Thank you, Havi, for creating this space for us to share in the good and the hard. I love the community forming here and I’m so happy to be a part of it.
The hard: Work had an unusually high number of unpleasant-weird and just plain unpleasant phone calls – you know, sometimes the weird is actually interesting or fun, but not this week.
My dad went in to the hospital for some tests and ended up having an emergency triple-bypass instead. Times like this living far away and having no cell phone sucks.
Another Rolfing session that pushed me to the edge of my pain tolerance, although the results are worth it.
The good: Had a great, relaxing, no-schedule weekend for my birthday last Sunday. Kids with the inlaws, me and DH up in the mountains with no phone, no internet, just sunshine and birds feeding their babies and an occasional thunderstorm.
Got to spend Wednesday evening with my daughter.
Discovered a musician who is now my new musical obsession – SJ Tucker, website skinnywhitechick.com. Awesome voice, terrific musicianship, clever/intelligent lyrics, all in one package. I’ve been listening to my birthday CD over and over and over …
Finally got over that cold that’s been lingering.
Another Rolfing session with amazing results, in spite of the moments I think I can’t take it.
Anna-Lizas last blog post..Pollyanna Is Waiting for the Sand Sharks to show up