Edie Windsor is fantastic, fierce, and alive at 83.
We should all be that awesome and full of life by the time our 80′s roll around. I hope I am.
Edie Windsor is fantastic, fierce, and alive at 83.
We should all be that awesome and full of life by the time our 80′s roll around. I hope I am.
This is exactly what I needed to read, right now.
Those of you who know for whom I work, and what I do, probably are going “Well, duh.”
I see myself in her words, her anecdotes- even though I am not and will never be a CFO. This imbalance of work and life is all the way down at my level, the so-called line manager. It is unhealthy and it is getting worse.
Gone are the days when I could justify the time and energies I dumped into my job. I look around and see the drain happening to others and think “Not me. I won’t do it.” And I think this, knowing it hurts my chances at promotion, pay and stock increases, etc.. I no longer check my phone all the time nor answer as many emails on weekends. I simply don’t do it.
My life -and, as Callan says, “giving the best version of me”- to my loved one matters more. Because when I die, I will not regret all those hours I didn’t work.
Yesterday I synced up with my personal trainer, which I will do periodically to make sure I’m doing the right things, not missing any exercises, etc.. She just about killed me, LOL. But, it gave me some good ideas to take into my next solo workout.
More than 200 businesses will urge the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to strike down a federal law that restricts the definition of marriage to heterosexual unions.
Lawyers representing the businesses said they would file a brief in the case.
Companies including Microsoft Corp, Google Inc, Starbucks Corp and Pfizer Inc are among those that joined the brief. Others included Aetna Inc, Amazon.com, Inc and Citigroup Inc.
I’m not sure what effect this will have on DOMA, but it’s nice to see the support.
As I read this story today, it reminded me of my interesting family background.
Norman Hendrickson was known for telling jokes and never wasting money. So when he died suddenly while en route to his wife’s funeral, the couple’s daughters knew there was only one thing to do: Hold a doubleheader service.
The 94-year-old World War II veteran’s impromptu wake was held Saturday at the same eastern New York funeral home where his wife Gwen’s funeral was already scheduled. She was 89 when she died on Feb. 8. After Norman died just steps from the funeral home, the daughters decided their parents would be mourned together at the same time.
If you read the rest of it, the family showed remarkable resilience -and humor- when faced with Norman’s very sudden demise. Most families would probably collapse.
My mom’s side of the family has a long, established relationship with the business of death. At least 2-3 generations on her Dad’s side of the family were morticians or funeral directors. Or, in his case, both.
Grandpa George was a sweet, funny, man with a sharp wit and a talent for one-liners. He worked for a long time as a mortician, before transitioning to a funeral director role with one of the oldest funeral homes in Indianapolis. He told stories of burial mishaps that were almost too good to be true, but they were.
One particular story that I recall had a Catholic priest not paying close enough attention to his surroundings, only to tumble backwards into the open grave of his parishioner.
Another was a man who had prepaid for his funeral- down to the last detail. When it came time to have visiting hours, Grandpa noted that the inside of the casket was beige, and that the decedent was dressed head-to-toe in shades of green. Shoes, boutonniere, shirt, tie, the works.
He whispered to this fellow funeral director “He looks like a grasshopper in a wheat field.” Grandpa’s colleague had to exit the room to keep from laughing out loud.
So it is perhaps a bit ironic that, after my Grandpa passed away in 1988, that we discovered a few months later that he had been buried in the wrong plot. He had to be exhumed and moved to the correct plot nearly a year after his death.
My aunt said that somewhere, he was laughing his ass off about “those incompetent fools”.
She’s probably right.
I started back to the gym about a month ago, using past training techniques as well as my interests to try and get back into the groove. So far, it’s going well.
Not being a fan of scales or numbers in general, I’ve not been weighing myself often. I did today and noticed I lost about 3.5lbs. I can tell by how my clothes fit, too. Though weight loss is not my main goal -pain and stress control are- it’s nice to see things happening.
Then I thought I should be capturing what I do each day, and what better way than here.
Subtitled: On Learning To Just Decide, Dammit
Lately, I’ve been finding all sorts of articles which reflect the work I’m attempting to do on myself. This one made me laugh out loud, because I saw myself in it so clearly.
I’ve definitely been in analysis paralysis mode, which this article captures by way of a life vs The Sims comparison:
In real life, you think about getting fit. You’re not sure what to buy. Can you really afford the ‘right’ equipment? You read reviews. Do you have enough time? You ask questions on Quora. Maybe you buy something. You don’t know how to use it. Maybe you use it a couple times. You don’t see any results. You talk and think and share and do anything but exercise.
Exactly. If I had a dollar for every overly-analytical thought I labored over instead of, you know, doing stuff, I’d be pretty damn wealthy. While I don’t fully know why my thinking became so warped over the last few years, I’d wager it has a lot to do with a fear of failure and being judged. Easier to think and explore every angle rather than doing something.
The whole article is worth a read, but this is the essence and it’s beautiful in its truth:
The final lesson from The Sims is the game is indifferent.
There’s no winning The Sims. Everyone dies. There’s no high score. You live your life how you want, and you alone judge what to make of it as it rolls by. This may sound familiar.
But that doesn’t make life pointless; it makes life anything you choose it to be. If you want to live yours free from regret: keep your state high. Focus your time into a few select skills. But most importantly of all: go ahead and click on something.
That last part about picking a few select skills really resonated with me; I think in my struggle to balance life and figure out what works for me, I’ve taken on too many things and then feel guilty when I can’t nurture each equally. Breaking it down to a few things -and not an endless search for more stuff to do, collecting experiences in a way- makes a lot more sense. Of course, one has to know when it’s time to move on from an activity, and cultivate new interests.
As always, a fine line between these concepts.
Subtitled: When I live in the past or future, I miss out on the freedom and peace in the now.
Recent events have lead me to exploring a variety of things- spirituality, philosophy, psychology, meditation, and a host of other topics. One that I keep turning over and over like a worn river rock in my hand is the concept of being present.
This article at Tiny Buddha really captures the difficulty I have with this concept- and have always had.
I’ve been going the gym three days a week in an effort to keep my neck injury from 2007 under control, manage stress, feel better, etc.. All the usual reasons.
It’s always an interesting study in behavior when I go, especially in the locker room. The gym is in my office building, so it’s super-convenient for me to drop off my crap, head downstairs, and sweat it all out before I hit the Digital Salt Mines.
Back to the locker room. I am not shy when I am in there; I have to undress, and I don’t feel compelled to cover up for everyone else just because I don’t know them. There’s no parading and acting a fool, but again- not going to wear a burka just to avoid embarrassing others.
The other day I was in the gym preparing to shower, and another woman came in just behind me to do the same. As soon as she saw me getting ready to change, she grabbed her stuff and ran around the corner. So I undressed, grabbed my towel, and headed to the shower. She then ran back to the changing area to avoid me in the shower area.
I get that not everyone is 100% comfy in places like this, but really? What are you so afraid of that you needed to HIDE? I’d never laid eyes on this gal before that day and I certainly wasn’t paying close attention to her when in the locker room. And I don’t think this was a case of homophobic craziness, but what do I know.
Humans. Never a dull moment.
I’m not an avid subscriber to astrology, though I confess I’ve found many to be accurate. This one I found last Friday is definitely hitting the mark.
Before any system can leap to a higher level of organization, says poet Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge, it has to undergo dissolution. “Unraveling or disintegrating is a vital, creative event making room for the new,” she declares. Guess what time it is for the system we all know and love as YOU, Pisces? That’s right: It’s a perfect moment to undo, dismantle, and disperse… as well as to unscramble, disentangle, and disencumber. Be of good cheer! Have faith that you will be generating the conditions necessary for the rebirth that will follow.
Though I had initially thought 2013 would be a departure from 2012, it seems it’s time to face the music.
Dismantle, disperse, and deconstruct. That’s the name of the game. Continue reading
Alternate title: WTFF Was THAT?!
So, this here blog is still on. Fancy that. There was a time when erasing it from the face of the interwebs (inasmuch as that’s possible) looked like a certainty. But in retrospect, I’m not sure I ever could have carried that out.
2012 has, overall, been the most difficult in recent memory. Many painful and frustrating events later, I’m still standing. Perhaps a bit battered, but standing.
Rather than recount in gory detail the good, the bad, and the irrevocably broken things, I’ll list the “high” points and move on:
Some of the above has been resolved, some of it not. Through it all we survived and haven’t lost our minds in the process, though there have been days where sanity was absent.
2012 did bring a few good things- gay marriage legalized in Washington and Maine, for one. We had the pleasure of watching some dear friends -together 28yes- legally tie the knot December 15th. It remains hard to fully express how lovely it was; their faces conveyed joy unlike anything I think I’ve ever seen.
2013 will bring its own challenges, I’m sure, but I’m hopeful that there will also be rewards, enjoyment, and accomplishment.
Happy New Year to you!
2012 has dawned and I find myself feeling a measure of peace and excitement.
New challenges are coming, and with those challenges bring change. I’d been feeling a tad moody earlier in the week; Bayou was gone from 12/23 till 12/31. The house felt empty, and I couldn’t sleep. Earlier I was texting with a friend in San Diego, because she’d posted this great quote:
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves. We must die to one life before we can enter another.
Reading that hit home, and really brought to the surface why I was feeling unease. In taking this new job, I’m leaving so much of my emotional support. My team is made up of people I socialize with, people I trust and even love. My job has been so integrally part of my identity; coupled with that love, I’m leaving behind a lot. No wonder I was feeling off-kilter. Realizing the ‘why’ helped.
Because Bayou was away for Christmas, we had our celebration/gift exchange New Year’s Eve. It was fun to see how on the same page we were. We had said, prior to her trip, that experiences were more important than things. With that in mind, we worked on providing exactly that. The final tally of fun:
So 2012 is shaping up to be a good year for new experiences. Including the list above, Bayou has at least one biz trip, I’ve got my new job, and we’ll be working on all of the above. It feels great to have creative projects moving and forming again. It’s been too long.
What a year.
It’s hard to know how to even describe what 2011 has been like. Honestly, it’s been one of the rougher years in recent memory, since my Dad died in 2009. I think I spent most of 2010 in a haze, numb and stumbling.
But 2011… this year everything was in sharp, searing focus. Continue reading
Well, yesterday was the day after all. The day I pushed the button and chose the other fork in the road.
My tenure with the Inspector Gadget team will end sometime in the next 45 days. I’m still not sure I believe it. Almost 8 years, now, of my life with the same general group doing increasingly complex investigations. Continue reading
To all the crazy waiting on this job front, that is. What did you think I meant?
Earlier this week I finally got the offer letter from recruiting. However, there was no adjustment to cover my going from hourly to salaried. I was disappointed; the hiring manager and I get along well and I didn’t think this was fair.
So I wrote a nice, diplomatic note and said (in essence) “WTF, dude?”
…has finally arrived. This would be the internal role not with my current organization.
Some different things have come into play since I last wrote. That potentially in-house manager role? Yeah, about that. Continue reading
My journey with music has been tortured and not at all linear. I remember vividly the day I got to choose an instrument in 4th grade. I picked violin. And I remember equally vividly the day I thought the 4th grade version of “Fuck this shit.”
Like many before and since, I had a crappy teacher. She was unimaginative, kind of shrewish, and the sort who liked to pick on her students under the guise of “gentle teasing”. In my music class was a kid named Matt, and he and I were buddies. One day she teased me -in front of him and the rest of the kids- of having a crush on him.
I was angry and mortified and from that day forth quit. The teacher was really stunned and upset and quizzed my parents on why I was quitting. All I told them was I didn’t like it and didn’t want to do it anymore. While that wasn’t entirely true, I will admit I hated practicing- probably because the way she taught me made it seem like a major drag.
Fast forward about 5 years and I expressed interest in guitar. My parents arranged for me to take lessons at a local music shop. I had a nice teacher, whose name escapes me, and while he didn’t make me feel dumb or anything, he didn’t really give me direction or drive me to learn. I practiced more and got a bit proficient, but lost focus and ended up quitting that too.
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