Gorilla Welfare

Thinking a lot lately about changes in my attitude. They resulted from completely giving up on everything. I can't make things work that don't. It's a relief not to have to try so hard.  So, here's one thing I learned that I think is important enough to pass along... Don't try to wrestle with your emotions. They will totally kick your ass.  They don't speak English and they carry all the really good weapons:  your brain chemicals, your cravings, your mood, your memories, your hormones, your whole physiology.  They can toss you around like a gorilla throwing a rag doll. But the thing to realize is, this gorilla actually *LOVES* you.  You are it's baby and it just wants to help you "be happy".  It can be short-sighted and irrational and doesn't always plan very well, but if you don't either and you are miserable, it will step in and take over.  If you are not respecting yourself and your own rights it will begin to send you messages.  Things like nightmares, dread, depression, boredom, distractions, hopelessness, addictions, daydeams, stress, attractions, impotence, panic attacks, ulcers, sudden hair loss, receding gums, and chronic pain.  The messages will escalate until it gets your attention... Warnings:  If you ever vomit on the way up to a door, for goodness' sake, don't open that door, just turn around. If you EVER feel like ending your life, you probably actually DO need to end--not your living, breathing existence--but your LIFE, how you are living.  What is the most drastic change you could conceivably make and if you made that change, could things REALLY be EVEN worse?  If you really want to "end your life" you are under no reasonable obligation to continue with what you are doing the way you are doing it.  Change everything.  CAN you do it by yourself and how, or why not?  Who can help?  SOMEONE can if you look for them. I'd heard the phrase "you have to deal with your emotions" often enough but couldn't actually *DO* anything with that until one day it struck me literally: "*MAKE* a deal with your emotions".  So this little mindhack helped:  I listen carefully to what my subconcious is telling me, try to figure out what goal it's trying to accomplish and decide what approach I want to go with.  It IS literally talking to myself but I don't buy into the stigma on people talking to themselves. I acknowledge the feelings and ask for my deal...  "Yes, I know, that IS a sad situation.  Let's have a good cry over that later after I get home from work and for now maybe I'll keep my mind occupied with work stuff, okay?"  "Yes, I can see where you're coming from, and it's TOTALLY understandable for a person to feel that way if they are Human.  I'm sorry about the way real life works and that there are no shortcuts, but I'll do what I can for you, okay?"   "Thanks for the idea, that DOES sound like it could be fun/delicious/a nice treasure, but the consequences would probably exceed the benefits.  How about we do this other thing for now, and see how that works, okay?"  "Sure, it would be cool to spend time playing but the waste of all that time usually leads to disappointment.  The sense of accomplishment from doing something productive will be better and more lasting.... How about we play afterwards, okay?"   And the subconcious is SO happy to finally get some consideration and appreciation that it's pretty cool with my deals and seems to use it's influence to help me make those deals work out. This all just sounds like "self-control".  But the distinction is that it's easier to buddy up with the 800-pounds of emotions than to try to CONTROL them.

Today

Today I took my Mom's boxes of photographs off my kitchen table. I took her photograph off my wall. I've never been one for photos of loved ones all around. It's not that I don't care, I get too emotional. When I had pictures of my children on my desk, I couldn't get anything done I'm more of a photo album kind of person. I like to get into it and reminisce, not just walk past my love on the way to the bathroom. Or not walk past, not be blind, be blind-sided. "Oh, Look..." I took her ashes down off my front shelf, underneath it was her death certificate. I wrapped it in a beautiful silk scarf from China. It's not that it was in my face, or in my way. I wasn't constantly tripping over a big black death-brick. It's just what does it mean, what do I do, this is incomplete, is she mine now? Do I have to want to keep this? Do I? I took everything, well not everything, but the things I mentioned above... I put them in the laundry room cabinet and closed the doors. They are not gone, they are set aside with honors, kept safe for when I am ready..

Futurity

Hmm, well, been through a lot of changes....my kids are staying with their dad mostly... The teenagers are "batchin' it". It's all good, good male bonding time...

There are still "technical" issues... Okay, money issues. :p



I've had a lot of growing and changing to do each new person I become asks the last one, "What were you thinking?". I appreciate the answers... Personal growth is pretty interesting...

One thing I learned is that the important thing is not what happened but what you did to make it better...

So sad to mention that my dad passed away recently after a long, slow illness... Bedridden for three years... He's in a better place.

Lost and Found

I think my year begins in Fall. Things seem to change for me in mid to late September every year.

I'm just kind of thinking of the time periods. The last few years have kind of run together. They've been about stages. And it doesn't seem like gradually stages where things fade into each other slowly, but more demarcated, like discoveries: I didn't know and now I do. I couldn't and now I can.

I would not expect to be happy, and really I'm not Happy-Happy about the breakdown of my marriage but really I am kind of more serene now. It's been a long time through stages of trauma, recovery, healing, awareness, finding my eyes (seeing how things really are), finding my feet (realizing I can explore my world), finding my arms (relating to other people on a deeper level), and finding my hands (understanding my power to change my environment and circumstances).

Sloth it Off

Wow, just had a really crazy month and a half in which my brother finally came to visit. Things eventually got weird as in too much nervous energy and cabin fever for him. I'm glad he's back and happy again. I want to rest and breath but I've got too much to do. Not that I'm not just resting, but I'm feeling really guilty about it. So what do they call that? ...rest without relaxation?

The Pics

I've been looking at pictures of the devastation in Japan. I can't even stand to look at it. So sad. So much destruction.

Wishes For Fishes

Woke up despeately missing my fishes. Angel Rocket, a white tetra and Volcano, a black and orange guppy the color of cooling lava. They were troopers. They lasted over a year as we added other pretty little no-name fish, like the tiny ones with the electric blue stripe down the side. I loved to watch the tank every night when I sang my boys to sleep with "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas. (That's what they wanted to hear and it always did the trick even though I'd have to get kind of loud to reach the high notes.) One day we bought a new tetra from M@*!@&'s. He was going to be a new best friend for Volcano and Angel Rocket. A day or two later, everybody looked funny, kind of "mossy". They had Ick, which is such a descriptive name. We put the drops in and tried to save them but everyone died... So I woke up in the middle of the night, deeply sad about the fish I used to love and the little children who used to love them.

A Happy New Year

Wow. Sorry to be missing in action but I think I am busy being happy.

A few days ago I found a file where I wrote "you can't expect to be happy until you realize you can't expect to be happy". Which I didn't even realize was a way for me to justify/pass off lowered expectations as wisdom...

You people, and you know who you are, really helped me become a person. I thought it was just the strange random magical luck of the Internet that found me people who were willing to be interested. And wonderful people willing to talk to me. THANK you.

You know, that was really kind of a rough ride for me, coming through all that. I think denial was my best coping mechanism. There was a lot to break through. I am so grateful to be free. I want it to be known that I made myself unhappy. As a square peg, I really had no business trying to deny my corners and squeeze into a round hole. You can't fake your personality away. I can't believe I could try to pretend not to be weird! That's like my main appeal! : )

Well I still have some technical difficulties and I've just finally figured out that amicable doesn't mean easy and I really do need to do ALL the work and that's okay I just needed to accept that. Meeting to get together and "decide things" that never actually happen are still time-consuming, time passes... So that's my first work of the year.

Of course I am not dating but I have a couple prospects that I'm happy about. One of my friends even gave me a nice Christmas present.

I hope those reading this can feel my love and appreciation for your attention, acceptance and concern.

Xoxo,
Sue

Dude!!!

Random Act of Culture

Scattered, Like Brains

Good golly. Yeah I've been spending way too much time on Facebook being social. I feel happier, but stupider for it. Okay, not stupider, but less studious. I should really be reading articles.

I am trying to form an opinion about what I think the effects of the de-pegging of the Chinese RMB to the dollar and the inflation it is causing in China and the likely ripple effect of inflation in America. And also the changing work culture there. I've heard that many young people are leaving rural areas to move to the cities and work in the service industry and many of the people who went to Beijing to work the Olympics never went back home and that's causing labor shortages in the factories. And change is going very quickly. The currency rate bump up is going to be like 4% soon. So I think import prices from China are going to increase a lot and I wonder what effect that will have on the North American economy. In the latest DOL numbers, the Producer Price index is up .4%, the Consumer Price Index is only up .1% but wouldn't the PPI directly influence the CPI, uh, causally? Will we recover our domestic production capacity? In time? Will we increase imports from India and Mexico? Will this fluctuation affect the entire globe? What areas will benefit? Am I a citizen of the world or of America? I want to tell my friends what to do...

And you guys both probably know I am in over my head. Which leads me to: How do I form opinions? I feel like... you know, this is a little raw. But for whatever reason, I feel like a noob. I've avoided having opinions because I didn't want conflict or criticism or have to defend myself or even to make waves. So I've got some issues with this. But I feel like I have pretty good intuition and a good sense of "how things are", I've got a good position to monitor different market segments like advertising, collectibles and restaurant supply, which behave differently, so I have quite a bit of national data to work with. And I think most essays do start with a certain hypothesis in mind. I think I have anough flexibility to change my opinion if I find I'm wrong. How do I analyze things without trying to read 5 huge books and falling into a morass, trying to become an economist? I don't know to what standards I have to hold myself personally accountable for? I know the standards of journalism are strict. It's just there is an incredible amount of space between Perfect and utterly stupid and I'm not even getting on the board anywhere because it won't be "correct". How do I find my place?

Goofing Up

I don't have anything very entertaining to say, but it has been a very strange week. I've been having trouble keeping money in my hands. I usually do a little better. I'm afraid if I keep pushing the bills forward to catch up to the money, I'll have sort of a reverse snowball effect. Hmmm. Wait. No that would be an actual snowball effect wouldn't it? I don't know, I give up! : P

Anyway, we'll always have music!

A Lesson

People talk about life not being black and white, but really full of many shades of grey. But it's even more than that. The sky and the clouds, the grass and falling leaves... Life is many shades of color.

A beginner will see things in black and white because he is literally reading the rule book, trying to memorize it and follow it all at the same time. It takes experience to learn how to handle mistakes and make adjustments. It takes time to acquire finesse.

A budget is a lot like a diet. When you're new to a diet, you carry the book around and won't have a slice of tomato that's not on the list. When you're new to a budget, you estimate this much for utilities, that much for gas, groceries, etc. and a small spending allowance so you won't feel too deprived.

As you spend time on a diet you learn how to bend the rules and add good foods when you're really hungry and just how much bad food you can get away with.

When my new budget came into a conflict between my desire to have more fun and my car's desire to have more gas, fun won. So that was a mistake, but shouldn't be the end of the world. But I'm still working in black and white. It was a much worse mistake to try to go back and "unfun". I need to accept my own responsibilty and consider other people's feelings and mine too. I will make adjustments to eek the money out of groceries. And I'll eat my ramen noodles with humility while I think about this lesson. : )

Music to Me

Last night I was talking to my Dad and the nurse interrupted when she came in to check his vitals and afterwards, I said "Gosh, I forgot what i was talking about..." and my Dad said "programming". !!!

And my stepmom and the nurses were making a big deal about how he can say "Hi"

My Dad f'ing rocks.

Where You Want To Get To

Wish I knew what I was really saying before I was actually saying it. But I usually say what I need to hear if I only listen, "It's not about what it is, it's about what it means." So, some things are opportunities, some things are just good signs. Some things are growth. Sometimes you've got run into the curbs to see where the road is, or even to find the turns. Getting off base a little bit to reach critical mass and find out, wait, I've got a lot more growth to do. I'm not working this hard and causing this much havoc just to get to Maslow's level one. I have to keep in mind the ultimate goals that I'm doing the whole horrible metamorphosis to achieve. Okay, eww, thinking cockroaches *sigh*...

Interesting few weeks, interesting, sometimes painful days. No pain, no gain. (Pain is helpful. It makes you tough. It keeps you from injury. Triumph.) Learning acceptance and letting go. Remembering my spirituality. It's helpful to look at things the opposite way. Why do I make bad choices, I'm a loser. How about no, it's a stellar choice in a few ways but... You can make even better choices that work and be a winner. Look at things the opposite way and poof, you're on the other side.

Ahhhh, Beef!

Was just thinking "I wonder what I should make for dinner..." And I heard a deep voice in my head say "Beef. It's what's for dinner."

Thank goodness for advertising!

P.S. I've been too scared to look into the whole Lady Gaga thing so this is just literally about my dinner. : )

Look Up

Learned something interesting... Well you know, I don't know if this is gossip or not. I'm starting to think that people who break these rules are more socially aware than people who follow them. It is freaking hard to follow every freaking rule. It's just awful, you can never succeed. It's okay to not exactly agree with some rules, or draw gradients and draw a line on the spectrum... Anyway, maybe this is gossip but... I found out someone I like actually likes someone I really think is a jerk. The implications are huge: My opinions are just mine. Not everyone thinks of everyone the same way. Everyone has a shot at friends. A lot of people might think I am a jerk. That's not the end of the world. It's variable. (I don't think variable's the right word. What word do I want?) Maybe I can vary people's opinion of me. Maybe I don't have to. If I strive for what I believe is good, we will all survive.

I had some trouble with some acquaintances, see a few posts back, and someone asked me "So why do you want to be friends with these people?" That's a very interesting question...

I have to get ready for work so... Have a good day! : )

Reality Food TV Shows

Made this list of parody names for reality shows for the Food Network. One of the things I was doing instead of sleeping the morning of August 26th : )


• Big Broth

• American Ladle

• Judge Juicy

• Dancing With the Jars

• Supercanny

• Pimp My Rice

• So You Think You Can Mince

• Breadliest Catch

• Wife Soup

• The Appretzel

• Chops

• History Dieticians

• Project Soufflé

• DishBusters

• Ice Cream Truckers

Guess What's For Lunch

Hello! It's been a few days. Everything is pretty decent. No news is good news! I always hated that saying when I was a kid and thought it meant "All news is bad news." Haha.

Last night my kids and I made croissant dogs: you wrap hot dogs in Kraft cheese slices and Pillsbury croissant dough and bake them in the oven. We started with 15 minutes kept going so I'm not sure how long... It was fun!

Just Don't Know

Went to the show. Said Hi to an acquaintance who I know from a social network and his friends one girl one guy introduced themselves to me but then right away he waved his hand up at me and said "Well, you came over to say Hi, so Hi--" and turned to walk out to the back porch. I just felt kind of stupid so I watched the TV for a while, there was a show about pawn shops that was kind of interesting. Then the opening act was setting up so I went out and got a good table and kind of put myself to the side like either that's how I wanted to sit or they were welcome to join me when they came out. And they didn't look at or say anything to me and sat at the table right next to me. And then another girl from the social network came in and sat down and looked at me like sorry and then whispered to the other girl. I was so embarrassed and felt like a presumptuous loser. At the bar when I went up I said to the guy 'I must have misunderstood, when people announce things it usually means come join them and you do know me, so I'm kind of embarrassed... You're making me feel like some kind of creepy stalker or something.' So he said 'Don't worry about it, you're fine.' But nothing changed, it's not like they then asked me to pull my chair over 12 inches or anything... I felt so rejected and stupid I had to go out and cry for a minute. I came back but I felt really uncomfortable. I went to get a refill of Diet Coke and somebody took my table. But I paid my $7 and I was going to see the band. So I hung out in the doorway and then after a couple songs found a place to sit behind a wall next to the sound guy. I had to go out and cry a little more. I came back and said a prayer, just that I could accept the situation and find peace. Then the band was having trouble with feedback. And the sound guy was not around and the band was saying "Somebody please help us! Just turn down "K1" and "K2"!" And so I stood up and peeked at the giant soundboard. I saw no K1 and K2 but positionally I was starting to suspect the sliders labeled Q1 and Q2 were it and was still debating whether the sound guy would kick my ass or just kick me out when he came running up. I said "I didn't touch anything" and sat back down. And I started to enjoy myself because I realized: I am not a "cool kid". Who would do that? I can be dorky. I can be emotional. I can be way too earnest. If I'm not dancing with my feet, I'll be dancing in my seat or at the very least keeping the beat. So I guess I don't really fit in with them. I guess I wonder why they didn't tell me I wasn't welcome. Oh wait, they did. See? Not cool.

The band walked off the stage because of the sound guy or the crowd.
Anyway, I will beg Barb or Amy to go next time or hunt down my wild band girl Jackie. I need a wingman. Wait--sidekick? Whatever!

I want to know when I will find my crowd.