7.31.10 – End of the month

I'm so very glad this month is now nearly over.

7.30.10 – Cooling Off

It’s beginning to cool off – both literally and figuratively. Now if I can just get back to what I need to do maybe it will all be okay.

7.29.10 – Timing

Luckily this time around being sick the symptoms didn’t overwhelm me all at once, as they usually do, so I was able to make it to the store and prepare for the ordeal. Leaning my head back doesn’t hurt today, so I’ll take that as a good sign.

7.28.10 – Head erupting

I’ve been trying to ignore the symptoms that I’ve been experiencing for the last few days – sore ears, pain in the jaw and back teeth, headaches, sinus pressure, etc. I am getting sick. I’m not sure if it’s allergies (the air quality is awful), the mildew building up on my walls due to the recent water damage that has yet to be dealt with (thank you unfeeling landlords), a cold or sinus infection, or the build up of everything that has happened this month (definitely an emotional overload to my system).

I’ve taken a Sudafed and have been chewing away on vitamin C tablets all evening, hoping to nip it in the bud or at cause my head, which right now feels like it’s in a vice, to gently let go of its fluids.

7.27.10 – Persistent distraction

The littlest things tend to fester, becoming mountains, and then cause us to be distracted from what really matters.

7.26.10 – The foggy haze of Mondays

7.25.10 – Popular libraries

I heard on NPR that the new popular trend looks to be public libraries. I’ve never been one to wait for or follow trends, but this one I’m happy about, especially upon hearing that Amazon is now selling more digital copies of books then “real” ones. Nothing really compares to the weight of holding a book in your hand and actually turning the pages (yes, I have seen the iPad, and it doesn’t compare).

I’ve always loved libraries and felt safe there. You never know what you’re going to come across, even now with the library catalogues online there’s still discoveries to be made. I also love the self-checkout.

7.24.10 – WTF?!?!

I read Paul Krugman’s recent article last night (probably why I had trouble getting to sleep) about how Republicans have always loved George W. Bush and his policies, but hated his low approval rating (I was a non-profit fundraiser when he was running for the presidency and having to hear from local Republicans who seemed giddy that the “jock” took time to shake their “geeky” hand – high school day dramas repeating over and over again). In an unbelievable way the GOP are apparently trying to revise history in order to paint Bush (and themselves) as the hero instead of the villain. Around the section of the article where the GOP pundits are trying to say that the Bush years were years of “vibrancy” caused me to think WTF?!?!. There are many words to describe the George W. Bush presidency, but vibrant would not be one of them.

What’s really scary is that they just might get away with it. I can’t go to the gym, or most any public place with a television set, and not experience Fox News blaring away (i.e. GOP Propaganda Central). Bush showed time and time again that if you repeat the same monosyllable phrase enough times, enough people will believe it no matter how false it may be.

The insane part is that in no time in our history have we been so able to access so much information. We don’t have to wait for the 6:00 o'clock news or the morning paper, we can go online and read blogger entries from Iran or countless other countries. Yet how many people actually do this? People are losing their jobs because of posting, what their employers’ view as, unprofessional photos on Facebook pages, so someone is doing some research.

Now if enough people can remember that George W. Bush was president when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, that the TARP bailouts came under his watch, and that he came in with a surplus economy and left us with a huge deficit we might be okay. Please, remember this.

7.23.10 – Waiting for twilight

7.22.10 – Storm coming

7.21.10 – Wanting some calm

I keep thinking things will let up and go back to normal. I’m still waiting.

7.20.10

7.19.10 – Seeing more clearly

Things are beginning to ease up and I’m seeing more clearly. Now if I can just sweep aside all these bad memories – and the anger associated with them – that have been dredged up by recent events.

7.18.10 – Remembrance

My mother passed away two weeks ago. She was 76, so she lived a long, if not so happy a life. I hadn’t originally planned on blogging about this, but as this year-long project has become far more personal than I thought it would, it seemed to make sense to talk about this. I also received news this morning that my best friend's mother (she and I were both late-life children) had also passed away. It was a reminder that even though I keep thinking I'm okay, I'm really not, and have been restless and in a somewhat distracted state these two weeks. Routine has been my friend and comfort, but can't completely ease things.

My mother and I hadn’t spoken in many years, which I’m sure most people won’t understand. I was under no illusions that we would ever be close again. It would have taken lobotomies for probably both of us for that to have happened. I felt guilty about this rift for a long time, and uncomfortable talking to people about it. In my mid-thirties I finally came to an uneasy peace with it, accepting that there was nothing I could do about the situation without either losing my mind or becoming someone I wasn’t.

The last non-profit job I had was very harrowing for me. It wasn’t just that the executive director created a toxic working environment, there was something else very intense and awful between us, which made my time there excruciatingly painful, yet I couldn’t leave for the longest time. It took my therapist to point out that the working relationship was similar to my relationship with my mother. As their personalities were so pole-to-pole opposite I didn’t see it myself, but it was true. Both my boss and my mother wanted me to be sometone else. They both wanted me to be docile (which I’m not) and accept what they said without challenge (as if), and to adore them despite the dysfunctional situation. In both relationships I had tried my best to please, but it didn’t matter whether I got the grant for work or didn’t or got an A or a D in school, which made me crazy at times and made both situations impossible. My boss hoped he’d eventually beat down my will and create the mindless, soulless, employee he wanted. My mother hoped the demon she thought was inside me that caused me to not behave as she wanted me to or want the things she wanted me to have would eventually be exorcised. I still have my will and the demon.

I’ve been listening over and over again to the beginning and ending of Arpan, a piece Ravi Shankar wrote for George Harrison and that was performed at his memorial concert. The word Arpan means offering, and what I’ve gathered much of the chorus talks of remembering that great soul and saluting it with love and respect. Maybe that’s what I need to do and hear right now.

I do hope my mother is at peace and in a better place. Regardless of everything, she deserves that.



Here's a link to the beginning and ending of Arpan: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe2tft_arpan_music

7.17.10 – Limbo

Some of the brief flashes of my childhood that I remember involve music. I always needed to listen over and over again to certain records, especially before I could fall asleep. I still listen over and over to certain songs, or even passages in songs, yet don’t know why. Sometimes it feels like a safety blanket, somehow lulling me back to myself. Lately I feel it’s that I’m in a weird limbo state and I need to get out.

7.16.10

7.15.10 – Life would be perfect if…

I’ve been reading Meghan Daum’s book, Life Would be Perfect if I Lived in That House. It’s about, in a rare honest way, her pursuit of the perfect life through the perfect house/apartment. I think most people, especially women, can relate to this. I know I used to think that if only I lost 20 pounds or got that dress or or that degree or that watch or could afford that trip or could move to New York or London, it would all be okay. Of course it never was.

She used the phrase “chronic lostness” about her first trip to Los Angeles, but somehow that seems to describe my own life at times, daydreaming about moving to one part of the country or another, thinking everything would be perfect if, yet not going anywhere.

7.14.10 – Blooms

7.13.10 – Jackhammer mornings

This is the sound I hear, not just at my apartment, but also from all over the city and its surroundings. Some of the road work is being paid for by the government to get people back to work, some other areas I think have more to do with the Midwest’s two seasons (winter and construction). Still, I can’t help but wonder if it is a reminder to me, as I’m woken up by it every morning now, that I have things to do in my life and that time will not wait for me.

7.12.10 – Letting some light in

It’s always been my tendency to prepare myself for the worst knowing it will eventually happen anyway. I know that kind of mindset just ensures the worst does happen. Now if I can just follow the logic that if I believe just as strongly that good things will happen, maybe they will.

7.11.10 – Wanting it to all be better

Things that have taken place recently made me more aware of how things went wrong so long ago, and that they haven't be right for a long time.

7.10.10 – Showing Grief

Recently a fellow blogger commented about how most people expect there to be a time limit to grief. They also expect a certain amount of showiness.

In this country we’ve been trained by daytime television and the movies as to how grief should look. We’re supposed to withdraw, but not completely, as the grief should be easily seen by all. We have to be really demonstrative with our grief, which then causes it to dissipate quickly. This may sound silly, but if someone behaves outside this norm, they are assumed to have something wrong with them.

Years ago at a previous job, a faculty member was telling me about how his wife used to work at a particular arts organization. He said her “last straw” was when the executive director’s father passed away and she offered her condolences, which he brushed aside, saying, “he was old.” I found the story so perplexing I couldn’t even comment at the time. Regardless of that executive director being a jackass, which many have said he was, it’s impossible to know what someone is going through and how affected they may be at such a loss, affected in a way they can’t express to others.

Not everyone wants to share their feelings (good or bad) with the world around them, especially with co-workers who they don’t really know. We’re all individuals and experience things differently and should be allowed to show or not show our grief (or any other feelings for that matter) any way we please without judgment.

7.9.10 – Trying to let go

My mind has managed to do away with the few good times I had as a child with my family. Now if I can just let go of all the bad times I do still remember...

7.8.10 – Pulling myself together

Sometimes you just have to embrace the routines of life in order to get through things.

7.7.10 – Trying to make sense of it all

It’s interesting how you can believe yourself impenetrable to things and then find yourself totally overwhelmed by them.

7.6.10

7.5.10 – Fireworks at the Door

7.4.10 – Recharge

I’m just trying to rest and recharge over this Fourth of July holiday. Not much else I want to say right now.

7.3.10 – Stopping Time

Sometimes I wish time could stop, at least for a little while. It’s not because I’m necessarily having such a great time, but so I’ll still feel there is plenty of time left.

7.2.10 – A Small Piece of Advice

Just a small piece of advice – never tell someone who isn’t in your life to do the right thing (you probably shouldn’t say it even if they’re in your life). All it does is piss them off and usually cause them to do the opposite.

7.1.10 – Paralyzed

Why is it that things that seem so easy to do rarely are?