Reconnecting

I abandoned my blog abruptly as turns in my life had sent me over a cliff. I haven't really written/journaled in a year and a half and it's manifested itself in my life as a daisy chain of failure.

I have this game I play with the universe, I've played it since I was a kid. It was a belief that I could control things out of my control. Such as, when riding in the schoolbus, I would not breathe in when there was a curb interrupted by a driveway. I avoided stepping on cracks from time to time, nothing to do with my mother's back, just a way of navigating tricky sidewalks, to see if I could do it. I also used to maniacally ensure that no blanket or limb ever hung over the side of my bed. I once got it in my head that at night, a giant table saw would swoop by, neatly trimming up clutter in right angles, and blindly hack off anything in its path.

I don't know what psychologists would say about that, but there certainly seems to be a deep-seated desire to control things out of my control. Or bargain with these unseen puppeteers, trying to play an imaginary game.

As an adult, these little games have fallen away and in its place, I believe that I can still influence the universe. It has been my experience that the worst things that happen are unforeseen. Therefore, I reasoned to myself, if I can think of all the bad scenarios and plan around them, it won't happen. I do this automatically. My mind hears something then extrapolates instantly for best and worst case scenarios. I can handle disappointment, it seems, if I knew it was a possibility, but it always seems to piss me off when I get blindsided, or surprised. Back to the control thing again. I should have been able to reasonably expect A, B, or C to happen, I should have had a plan in place.

What's funny about this whole topic is that, in the past year and a half since I've been typographically silent, I have found my career path. I am moving into Project Management with a bend on eventually specializing in Risk Management. It's something I've been doing as a child, and once I identified this career, I can't tell you how many question marks turned into exclamation points. All the floating uncertainties dropped to the soft earth like a relaxing athlete.

But writing - even if I'm doing something as simple as recounting a story or gushing over a recipe - seems to undo the OCD inside, takes the edge off, gives me that outlet and focus that my restless mind needs to stay balanced. Without my writing in the past year, a few areas of my life have become gummed up, and I need to untangle them. I believe when I am balanced, good things fall on me. I know it, actually. So here I am, ready to plug back in and love the muse, so she will love me back.

Foodie Snobbie Returns

My favorite butter lettuce salad has a rival.

Since my arrival in Charlotte, I seem to bring with me the ability to destroy networks. The internet connection for the office I'm has inexplicably gone belly up within one hour of me sitting at a desk, rendering the day a wash. This happened twice in two days.

When we realized by the end of the day that it was not going to be fixed, a coworker and I went up to the 27th floor on the high rise to a posh restaurant. We sat and the bar and drank a delightful cabernet and he taught me about wines, traveling, and I enjoyed a little buzz by 5pm. The owner came over and talked to us and offered us some sort of repast while we drank. Most of his offerings included oysters and shrimp, none of which unfortunately interest me, and he asked me what I would want if I could have anything.

A small appetizer sized salad, I heard myself saying. With goat cheese and balsamic vinaigrette. Wow, I sound all snooty and stuff. LOL.

Out came an arugula salad, the perfect size, with tiny pan fried sliced fingerling potatoes, sun dried tomatoes, and a round medallion of creamy goat cheese that had been lightly breaded and also pan fried. Holy God. The dressing was not too tart, nice and peppery, the arugula was soft with that unique tangy taste. I loved it. I'm going to recreate it...and I want to do it all from scratch. Now I have to look up recipes for home made salad dressing, too. Store bought ones just suck...I always love the ones I get at restaurants.

My wine drinking friend is also a gourmand, so we talked about delicious food and the art of eating in Europe.

I must go to Europe one day. Must.

Francis Ucker

And the humor of the universe still shows through.

Since I don't believe in coincidences, and believe everything's part of a genius' plan (because efficiency is genius, and the everything in the known world is efficient...with the exception perhaps of the DMV) I smiled to myself when I met a charismatic salesman named S. Ellis. His username is sellis. No coincidence, right?

What, then, my mind wondered, would that say about a man named Francis Ucker?

I have been giggling to myself all morning.

Here Comes the Sun

The cycles of psychoses are finally almost over. The craziness that has been my life the past month - thankfully - is finally subsiding. The Tao says, Even nature cannot make a storm that lasts forever. Somehow I forget in the middle of the thunder.

I walked out of my Rockville, MD office earlier this week and was stopped short by the sudden presence of trees. A small forest faces the building. The sun was behind it, giving that eye-of-God panoramic. I took a few steps, eyes still hypnotized by the unexpected scene. I slowed to a stop and just looked. There was something different about the trees, something alien. I noticed their bark spines were thick and strong, and damned tall, but the branches of the leaves and pine needles were short and stubby, yet healthy, as if they were the real life inspiration for the creation of pipe cleaners. It gave the trees a watchful, polished, foreign look like a sweet-tempered pit bull with cropped ears. Or the Dutch. :) Not the usual east coast fare.

I let go of the last of my mundane work day and put down my laptop, letting the trees sing to me. Mind you, I'd had no plans to be granola that day, or even remotely spiritual. I'm so busy that I have to plan it :) But it happens when it happens, and I made a deal with the universe to investigate and surrender where applicable. (and in return, the universe sends me hot guys I can't touch) The trees swayed, whispered, emitted friendliness I can't explain but I truly enjoyed. I loved them instantly and did a few short yoga breaths. I felt my insides relax, muscles quit tensing that I didn't even know were tensing. I picked up my laptop and walked to the car with a little smile on my face. I guess someone was telling me it was time to surrender. How absolutely neat that it happened so silently, yet significantly.

Don't Tread on Me

I choose to be happy. I choose to be positive, I choose to love. Though it brings me a lot of joy and I feel pretty fullfilled as a human being, it doesn't come without a price.

Several of my closest family and friends have recently stampeded all over my good nature. The yang of it is dealing with this emotion of wanting to reject the shit out of them. Wanting to carefully remove various knives from my back, turn around and face them, unlock the bitter, loosen the vocal chords, and have-fucking-at-it. Slash away. Use the words I am often gifted with for purposes of evil. I want to enlighten them in a direct manner that is totally devoid of emotion and brilliantly crafted. I want to amputate their egos with surgical, chilling, and grisly precision. I want them to see themselves as they truly are, I want them to see how they actually behave towards me.

But I won't. After all, my opinion, no matter how justified, is still only one side of the story. I could be in the right, but I certainly contribute in rolling shit downhill to other people. Until I'm without fault, I have to love people through good and bad.

Reason #45312

He threw out my wedding dress.

A lesson in fear

I was training a very nice lady today. Let's call her Beth. She has the outward appearance of a broiled baby robin. Scrawny and tawny, anxiety rolls off of her in waves. Her energy is so fearful and anxious at all times that I feel like a bridle and a sugar cube should be on hand whenever she comes to visit. And praps a trank gun.

In the training session, she came in apologizing for her sweaty armpits, wanted to close the door so nobody heard how little she (thought) she knew about the product. I told her this was just an assessment to see where additional training could be developed. She was a nervous wreck the entire time. Hey, not everybody's a rock star, but it upsets me to think about what she's missing out on in life by carrying this huge burden of fear on her back.

Which made me recall my own experience with fear...

The other night I had a weird dream before I awoke. I was climbing a rollercoaster track on foot. I dream often of rollercoasters, usually they are dangerous and life-threatening, where the harnesses break, or the shoulder bars fly open, or are about to fly open, and I spent the whole dream riding this rollercoaster in mortal fear for my life, holding onto anything to stay in. Hanging upside down, feeling my body start to succumb to gravity...feeling my leg slip out...my other leg....sweaty hands grabbing and sliding...dangling from the car....not quite letting go. I'd never let go, and I'd never get off the ride. I just keep doing this death grip dance all night.

I hate those dreams. They seem to love me, though.

This recent dream was about me manually walking a track with a bunch of other people, up and down, around...I was trying to reach a goal.

Pretty obvious as far as metaphors go, right?

We were all very solitary in our journey; I would not stop to help someone else, they would not stop to help me. It was a private achievement that I chose to undertake.

I got to the top. I could not believe I got to the top. And it wasn't even as hard as I thought it would be. I looked around and noticed the "top" of the track was probably 10 miles from the crust of the earth. I got instant vertigo and felt fear grip my chest. I looked wildly around at the person who was there to greet us - right behind him was a platform that took you to safety, to get you back down. I couldn't wait for my turn to get off this very narrow, slippery track. When it was my turn to go, I realized the platform was too far away. I looked down and saw monkeybars connecting the track to the platform.

Everyone ahead of me was swinging across the monkeybars and got up to the platform.

With no net.

Dangling above the earth.

My palms are sweating right now as I recall this. I immediately got painfully sweaty hands when I looked down, seeing miles and miles of sky going down to the ground, never feeling so close to mortal death. I knew if I tried to do this, I would fall, and I'd die. I was paralyzed with fear. I knew my hands were so slimy they'd slip, even if I had the strength to hold on.

I woke up, sat up out of a dead sleep, heart pounding, with sweaty palms.

I thought about this fear a lot, and decided it had everything to do with letting go. Maybe it's a lesson in conquering fear. Makes sense since I've been so Zen and balanced lately about everything other than romantic relationships.

But as for the dream, as for the fear of dying...What's the worst that could happen? If I died trying to reach my goal, I go straight Home to the Other side. Where, if stories are to be believed, I'll be happier than I could ever imagine. The question was, would I let this fear, on top of the sweaty hands that could cause my death, stop me from finishing a goal?

Would I halt my own progress just because I was afraid?


Very interesting stuff.