Fuck the Lilliputians.

I’ve had this quote from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs taped to the Magic Bus’ dashboard for almost a year:

 “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

 I gave my boss notice of my intent to depart my notjob by the end of this year, which is more than two months’ warning. I claim squatters’ rights on the moral high ground for allowing the company this much prep time. However, it took me nearly a week to actually quit after making my decision to do so. I’ve always had an ingrained and misplaced sense of responsibility to my employers. Never once have I inconvenienced any of them by walking off a job; I can’t say the same for them.

I reasoned I couldn’t quit on a Monday, that would be too cruel to start a week that way.  This is also an awkward situation with only two of us in this office, and it could become considerably more strained and awkward with my declaration of independence.  Tuesday I had Zumba in the evening which allowed little opportunity to announce my news to Mike. My list of excuses grew like Pinocchio’s nose. My chest tightened and I became inert for several days. I was disappointed and frustrated with myself at each day’s end. I began solidifying into inaction.

I happened upon this TED video about “power positions”.  I chose my day and shot the rattlesnake in my brain. I rehearsed my short speech, eliminating all pauses, excuses, and extraneous words, and arranged my body into a position that backed up my message – standing, no hands in pockets, no crossed arms. I remembered my Zumba instructor’s words – “keep your chest up.” I walked into my boss’s office and told him I was leaving, in the same tone I would have told him I had a doctor’s appointment. I did not ask for approval, I did not leave the door open to a counter offer. I gave no reason, and when, after recovering from his initial shock, my boss told me that I had to be honest with him about the reason for my departure, I looked at him levelly, laughed, and said no, I didn’t have to be honest with him and that I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to. No bridges were burned and no words were wasted justifying my decision. 

 I am now as a prison inmate whose release date is in sight. I should be happy, very happy that I am claiming my decision.

 Guess what.

 My stint here in solitary has given me, if nothing else, unlimited thinking time. As someone whose mind enters screensaver mode when deprived of a wide variety of stimulation and information, I’ve still managed to do quite a bit of deep thinking. I’ve watched TED talks, read blogs and blogs and books , and I’ve talked to friends, family, coworkers in other locations, former coworkers, and acquaintances. I probably talked to myself.

 I’m nowhere near happy, and I’m quite far from very happy. Right now, I am borderline furious. During my time at this notjob I have thrashed embarrasingly through the muck of frustration, anger, depression, resistance, resignation. There are long periods of time about which I can remember almost nothing. The fax machines and Outlook 2000 of this place have put me years behind technologically. The people skills and compassion and humility and sense of helping others in some very tiny, but very meaningful and soul-affirming way earned while working at M.D. Anderson have been locked into an excruciatingly dear and painful memory that rests on the road kill skunk reality of embroidered Yves St. Laurent towels, private jets, and Cartier Christmas cards bearing a modestly clothed baby Jesus that this job has been.

 I am angry because I am smart, funny, imaginative, strong, independent, and resourceful. Despite being all of those things, I have allowed myself to be tied down by Lilliputians, and I have been as much Lilliputian as Gulliver. I helped knot the ropes that have held me in various mindless jobs. I have been wailing and gnashing my teeth ad nauseum about the inanity of going day after day, year after year, to jobs that Winnie the Pooh, that bear of very little brain, could have dispatched with his little eyes closed. I have bitched and moaned and complained to anyone and everyone from friends to family to acquaintances to coworkers.  And I’ve done nothing to help myself. Nothing.

I thought if I’d gone to college I could have learned to think critically; three years stuck to an office chair in virtual solitary confinement with nothing to do have given me plenty of time to think clearly and strip off my oh-woe-is-me-cloak. The only work challenge I’ve ever accepted was having my own quirky little wind chime business where I was responsible for everything from gathering raw materials (frequently by climbing into trash bins) to making the chimes to building my displays to selling my products. I loved the process but burned out on the selling and prostituted myself back into office jobs that paid far more than they should have. I’ve told more than one employer that they paid me too much money but that didn’t stop me from taking the cash. I heeded well-meaning advice from near and far, from intelligent people who have actual careers and letters after their names, to take the money and just be glad I had a job. I bought into the line of bullshit the local employment agency fed me on my arrival here about the dismal prospects for employment in a town dominated by a single educational behemoth. I took on Mike’s fear that we will run out of money before our golden years. I have squandered years of my life that I can never recover doing mainstream paper-pushing that has virtually destroyed my self-respect and pretty much eliminated any reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Fuck the Lilliputians. I’m done.

I’m at the middle of my life, I hope. My mother, my very best friend ever, dropped dead at age 68, so I might already be closing in on old age.  I have a stupidphone and a hand-me-down computer. My clothes are second hand. I’ve never had or wanted a manicure or a massage. I have no kids or pets. If I’ve climbed into trash bins, obviously pride is not an issue. In other words, I am a very cheap date. What I’m going to do is to shed my inherited, unfounded fears of the future and my current boundaries of suffocating conformity. I am going to act on a primal need to become independent, responsible to and for myself. It’s way past time to set the bar at the level I choose. I am going to be at the right intersection with my thumb out when the party bus goes by, not watching from behind the safety of a steady paycheck. What I need, and what I will find,  is “the courage to follow my heart and intuition.” I’ll let you know how that goes.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Mine

mine: (pronoun) that or those belonging to me

What is mine?

Nothing. No thing. No person, no advantage, no possession, no dream, no thought, no situation, no words, no relationship, no place, no purpose, no time, no life. Everything, every thing, can be gone in an instant. Nothing is mine.

When nothing is mine, everything is mine. Frightening, yet liberating.

Nothing is mine and everything is mine. They are the same.

When spaghetti was spaghetti

I’m not a foodie. If someone wants to cook for me, I’m going to like it even if I don’t because they’ve gone to the trouble (unless they’re cannibals; I’d have to draw the line there. Hopefully they would have a dog under the table I could slip it to). Somehow my diet became healthier over the years, more so after I was away from home. My parents ate some pretty damning stuff — Mom dredged bread in bacon drippings and ate it and Dad had burgers & fries daily under the golden arches during his letter-carrier career.  They were simple, wonderful people and did an awesome job parenting three kids, each of whom has at least a dozen separate personalities, but they’re not on terra firma anymore. Their diet was a significant contributing factor in their premature heavenly recall.

The San Francisco treat!

Nuking rice today (that sounds healthy, doesn’t it, — and I’m doing it in cancer-leaching plastic) brought back some food memories. My Dad and I ate Rice-a-Roni brand Spanish rice (“Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat!”), made on the stove (that was in pre-nuke days) by my mother, who would say every time, “I don’t know where you learned to like spicy food.” That rice would not pass her lips. We’re Hungarian on my Dad’s side, and I hear we can trace back to Attila the Hun, so maybe that’s it. (You’re not surprised about the Attila thing, are you? Me either. It’s probably better than tracing back to Vlad the Impaler.)

We ate cake for breakfast. My Mom made frosting basically from butter, sugar and evaporated milk. I’ve never been able to duplicate it. I’m guessing there was a secret “mom ingredient” that’s the equivalent of the magical-sounding ”grains of paradise” used in beer brewing, that only Mom knew how to add for the perfect, creamy spreading consistency over that two-layer chocolate treasure.

I’ve struggled for years to find a decent meatloaf recipe. Mom pretty much put hamburg in a loaf pan and drizzled ketchup on the top, which nearly sent me to cooking therapy in adulthood. (“Tell me about your earliest meatloaf memories.”) She’d eat chicken fingers, always a safe choice, every time we went to a restaurant. She mailed me a ham bone once so I could make soup with it. I think it took about a week to cross country, unfrozen, in the mail. She meant well.

My Dad sprang from the womb already working. He had no idea how to not work. He’d deliver mail through rain, snow, sleet and dark of Pennsvylvania, then head to job #2, making milk boxes. Go ahead, ask me. In the summer he’d come home from work and mow the lawn in his postal uniform, then throw back a well-earned beer. He’d get a fire going in a hole somewhere in the nether part of the backyard, let it get to coals, and put corn on the cob wrapped in wet burlap in the hole. I’m not sure where he got that idea, but I remember clouds of smoke foaming up the slope and into the neighbors’ windows. The corn would take hours to roast. He could turn a steak into cowhide on the grill. But he was a man who loved to eat, and made no excuses for it. He had some sort of connection with the military reserve, and we’d go on these reconnaisance missions with those guys to a frozen food place where we’d get enough frozen pies to feed 50 people for a year. Each one had at least a can of whipped cream on top. We ended up giving them away to neighbors.

Mary & Alex

But this isn’t about the food. It’s about the folks. It’s always about the folks, and the fam, and the friends. It’s about the memories you’re making as you’re making them. Who cares if the pizza’s smoky? (You know who you are.)  Does it matter if the cheese isn’t made by dwarf nuns in the darkest Bulgarian forests? Does it really matter if the coffee is half-calf or full moo? No. It really doesn’t. It matters who’s across the table from you, and what’s being said between you, and what’s not being said between you. It’s about the stories being told, and the memories being made, how the light looks in their eyes, and how goofy some of us sound laughing. That’s what matters, because when everything else is gone, including those people in your life you can never replace, or get a second chance to tell how much they matter to you, or just spend more time with, you’re not going to be thinking the spaghetti sauce needed more basil.

Sleeping around

This gallery contains 11 photos.

Sleep doesn’t come naturally to many of my family members. I hear (and see by those 3:00a.m. posts) through the Facevine that my nephew is awake at owl hours (darn, that’s good!) and my oldest brother and I have discovered, during … Continue reading →

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can

This gallery contains 14 photos.

I have a fear of heights, maybe because I’m short, or because I come from a family built low to the ground, or from living in Houston for so long where the only hills were freeway overpasses. Height can be … Continue reading →

Goin’ ridin’ on the freeway of love

Put me in your gas tank.

I’m reasonably certain we all agree the planet’s natural resources are of a finite quantity. God’s finished making water and dirt here, and may be doing it all over again somewhere else so far away that it takes more fuel to get there than we can package. All Earth’s dead dinosaurs have turned to T-Rex Hi Test or Pterodactyl 89 Octane. Aside from what’s already in the ground, nothing else is decomposing into fuel. I’ve never really understood how we figured out about getting dead lizards to power our vehicles anyway, but I was probably doodling when that was taught in school.

 There’s a pretty consistent barrage of chatter about using public transportation. It’s like those ubiquitous plastic grocery bags – we didn’t ask for them, but one day (I actually remember it and thinking how flimsy they were) they were in all the stores, displacing the brown paper bags that held 3X as much stuff. We didn’t ask for those plastic bags in the first place, but somehow it’s our fault that we’re all using them. Now we all have that car in the garage because that’s how our lives and our world are laid out, and we’re supposed to feel guilty about driving it, despite the fact that the auto industry is (or was) a major economic engine, a driving force. Stop with the puns already.

 

Where was I going with this? Back to the point. Mike and I spent America’s birthday in Philadelphia this year and availed ourselves of public transportation (a foreign concept to Texans since everybody knows we all own our own horse), mostly in the form of trains. Depending on their mood, upon arrival of the train the conductor would either announce the next destination or simply glare at us. Lesson:  know thy geography. If they don’t feel like doing so, they’re not going to tell you that yes, I know where you’re going and you should get on this train. And bring cash since that’s how you get a ticket on board. No credit cards, and beads will only get you Manhattan. Antiquated comes to mind, as well as dangerous. I can’t believe nobody’s rolled that guy holding that wad of cash. The train from the airport dropped us at a city station where we wandered off into the nation’s beginnings. We hopped on the purple Phlash trolley (you get it – Philly – Phlash – terribly clever) and rode it end to end. By the time we traveled half way around its loop, the trolley was full to the rivets with people and the temperature inside had risen noticeably. Two thirds of the way through, the driver was obliged to turn away people waiting for a ride, and they were way less than happy about that. Their unhappiness was expressed in words that would make the Founding Fathers wince. The end of the ride was marked by small children screaming and crying at a wondrously frightening volume.

 Mike stayed on in Philadelphia for business and I returned to Charlottesville. I tried every way I could think of to return by public transportation. A flight from Philadelphia to Charlottesville cost more than $400. The train to Charlottesville was sold out, and would have dumped me in town well after dark, requiring me to get in a car with “Ridin’ High Taxi” printed on the side, driven by an unknown male smelling of (at minimum) tobacco, to be delivered to my isolated country neighborhood where I would hand him some form of payment if I survived the journey. I wouldn’t be the first female to disappear from this area, but that’s another story (and I’m not pointing at cab drivers, I’m just SAYIN’). I juggled an attempt to get on public rails from Philadelphia to Richmond or Baltimore or DC, which produced brief excitement at the substantial choices among those, till I discovered I’d have to either take a bus from those end points or rent a car, and drive the rest of the way to Charlottesville. It was the classic “you can’t get there from here” scenario. The cost of the car rental was the same, one full day’s worth, whether I rented from Philadelphia or Richmond or Baltimore or DC. The car rental just didn’t work like those rent-by-the hour cheap motel rooms with rubber sheets (I only know about those because somebody told me about them.)

 Some might call me a quitter and a threat to the environment, but I gave up. I rented me a little car, tossed my bag on the back seat, kissed Mike goodbye, cranked up my tunes and sailed onto the road. I careened along I95 and I66 with Steve Martin & the Steep Canyon Rangers (Atheists Don’t Have No Songs) and John Lee Hooker (Boogie Chillun’!) for company, stopping when I wanted and where I wanted. Who knew MickeyD’s had such a good Southwestern salad? Twenty five bucks’ worth of dino fuel got me from Phil to our local airport, where the Magic Bus had spent the weekend waiting for me and watching the prop planes come and go. I returned the rental and paid the credit card gate to spring us from parking and got myself home. The total cost was less than flying and a little more than a train ride would have been if a train ride could have been.

There was a well-written article in our local rag recently about how simple it is to take public transportation to area airports (Dulles, BWI, Regan – but not Richmond, because there ain’t no public transportation between Charlottesville and Richmond a little over one hour distant, WTF?), which involved friends, busses, subways and trains. After researching the possibilities, I did what I know how to do and have always done. I drove. It was like that scene from the Indiana Jones movie where Harrison Ford is in a plaza facing an assassin who’s using elaborate, time-honored fighting –by- hand methods, and Harrison Ford pulls out his pistol and shoots him. The guy drops dead. Simple. Like driving. There’s one train track between here and Philadelphia, but there are numerous highways.

When I can get here from there, or there from here, without spending hours trying to figure out connections that ultimately don’t exist, I’ll take public transport. Till then, I’m driving. Guilt free.

It’s gonna take an ocean. . .of calamine lotion

Calm down, it’s not me this time, but thanks for your concern. Some of you may be aware of, ahem, my sensitivity to The Plant, aka poison ivy/oak/sumac/whatever. I resemble a burn victim when it’s full blown, and the infestation lasts weeks, complete with phantom itching six weeks out. (You’re lucky, no photos on this post.) People offer me the cheery little “three leaves, leave it be” phrase, and I know they’re just trying to be helpful, but — they’re not. I just want to scratch down to the bone.

This little blog gem landed in my inbox today, and I felt an instant kinship with Dr. Moser. I want to have a beer with him, maybe two or three, and not a light beer either. I want it to be something like He’brew Jewbilation or Heavy Seas Uber Ale, and I want to buy. And I want neither of us to have The Rash while we drink our beers and swap war stories.

Now, I’m new to blogging (as witnessed by the two prior drafts of this post that magically went “pouf!”), and if you can’t get to the link below by clicking on it, you can copy and paste it in your browser.

http://blogs.webmd.com/all-ears/2011/06/home-remedies-adventures-with-poison-oak-and-ivy.html

So, have a happy 4th of July, drink an American brew, burn only on the grille, say hi to the fam, and stay out of anything green with three leaves.

The Bus is leaving now.

Doing the IV pole shuffle. . .

Or, the Magic Bus goes to the hospital.

Mike is never sick. He is an absolute model of healthiness. He is also nearly a compulsive hand washer. So, what the hell happened this past week? He called from Orlando, Florida to say he felt really bad and his face was swelling. I figured along with the bear siting last weekend, some exotic insect had chomped him. I snarled over the cell phone, “Go to the emergency room!” Surprisingly, he did. And let’s hear it for those Mickey Mouse professionals — no blood work, no culture, you have an infection, here’s a handful of antibiotics. They didn’t even give him mouse ears to wear to complete the horror ensemble.

When I picked him up at the airport , he looked like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Friday morning he looked like W.C. Fields.

 His local doctor took one look at his  and sent him off to the hospital, Martha Jefferson (why does TJ get all the statues and she doesn’t even get a shadow profile?), where we camped this weekend — Mike, his companion Mr. IV pole, and me. For some reason they quartered him on the pediatric floor. I guess that’s proof that Mike really is the eternal child.

Mr. IV Pole probably racked up at least 10 miles as we toured the parking lots and the building floors.  Somebody must have thought we were escaping and called the hospital to say there was a patient outside who might need help. Hmm, perhaps I was invisible (or they thought I was an accomplice). We stood around the front entrance and would have squeegeed windshelds like homeless people, but we were squeegee-free (but really promoting whiplash with our presence).

The neighbors

The hospital was preternaturally silent, even beyond weekend slow. We tried to meet the neighbors, but that proved difficult (i.e., they were dead). We read WSJ, NY Times, watched the second Transformers movie (WTF?) and the True Grit remake (Jeff Bridges was awesome. What an impressive drunk).

Mike doodled.

 

 We even had a curbside consult with the infections disease doctor. I asked about a reduced consultation rate but he was noncommittal.

We checked out the HVAC systems.

 

By Sunday morning, the infection had receded, but the doctors nixed discharge until Mr. Petri Dish could finish his 48 hour gig. Mike’s doctor seemed bemused by his wish to be discharged, wondering if he had something to do or somewhere to go; well, gee, no, we really enjoy the colorless room where we have to hold our breath to get past each other, all our toys are at our house, and Mike has to wear a gown that’s more revealing than a stripper’s ensemble. Duh.

Mondays are rarely good days, but this one was. Mike was discharged early in the morning. And unaided, I might add. He just sailed out the front door on his own — no wheelchair, no being handed over to a responsible adult. (I guess they knew there wasn’t one in this duo.) Mr. Petri Dish ruled out anything exotic, so I think this is an all’s-well-that-ends-well story. How Shakespearean.

Handsome as ever, and royal too

I’ve got the answer about what a bear does in the woods

After walking a “fairly easy” trail in Shenandoah NP today with Mike, I thought this post would be general griping about who rates the trails,  but there was a slight diversion from that.

We were almost (literally) out of the woods after struggling straight up and down and over the rocks of the “fairly easy” trail, and had just moseyed past the bear poop on the trail. And Mike says, “There’s a bear!”  Noooooo kiddin’. And not just any old black bear, but a black bear with 2 cubs. They shimmied their little butts up the nearest tree and mom plunked down at the bottom and gave us the eye. . .

 I had my pathetic pepper spray in hand. I blew a sharp blast on a whistle and she didn’t even twitch an ear. Being the good citi-fied people we still are, we hastily retreated down the trail and spent the next 20 minutes waiting for her to go away. Finally we crept forward together, and the cubs chose that moment to firepole back to earth. Mom had disappeared. Jiminy! The cubs crashed away through the underbrush and we got ourselves out of the trees altogether.

My little phone camera couldn’t get the action, so Mike re-enacted it with props at home.

Mike & the bear