the universe says no
I’m really hoping that all of this is the universe saying – ‘no, you can do better.’ I like that better than the other ways I can think about it. I feel like I have wasted 6 months and a bunch of money on this project. I am angry about how we misjudged the situation, thinking that everyone was acting with the same intent only to discover that he really isn’t an ethical businessman at all. I should have walked away in May, maybe sooner.
It was a ridiculous attachment to the property that got in the way. I knew the guy was a schmuck and I decided a while back that I was not going to let him rip us off. Really, walking away means that we spend a lot less money than if we had done things his way. So we had some boundaries for this – just didn’t realize what a liar he really is until pretty late in the whole mess.
It is done now, and we have learned a lot. We have done a lot of great work. We have money lined up – and the license. Now all we need is a building and there are a few of those we are looking at right now. Went and looked at a few today.
the strangeness of having a little boy
It is a strange and wonderful thing to have a child. Trying to remember anything about what it is like to be 8 and what the world meant to me, so that I can get this right with him and let him see it through a child’s eyes while making him ready to go out into all. It is stranger that he is a boy, for truly, I know nothing of being a little boy. I can only guess at what I must try to encourage in his life. He is so creative and energetic and I try to find ways to support that but sometimes it is exhausting. For all the things I try to share with him, I have no idea how he will turn out. I guess that is the fascinating part — I say that I try not to get attached to outcomes and I want to raise my son that way.
Bio Needed
I have taken on something new – a project I am excited about – and I get a message today about how they need me to write a bio. I have several that I use but the format of this one requires me to start fresh. So I get out a pen and an actual sheet of paper (analog!) and start making a list of the things I have done and the things that I do. Then I make a list of the things I am interested in. I hate writing bios. I have a hard time understanding what a complete stranger would want to know about me. I spend a lot of time creating something that gives people a vague, fairly useless impression of what I do.
On this particular evening, I amused myself with the cynical version of things:
I schedule like I have 28 hours in the day. My mom recently told me about how when I was in high school, I would forget to eat. I have always been this way. I do not like being idle.
I wake up before 7 am and don’t go to sleep until 1 or 2 am. I have a big list of places to be, people to call, writing I have to finish, meetings to be in, stuff I have to read, websites to build, computers that need fixed – there are four in my office right now with another ready to roll in tomorrow and 3 more that are lower priorities so they just have to wait. . . . blah blah blah. I had someone (who wants to add something to my list) say to me today – ‘I know you are really busy but when will you be less busy?’ I very honestly answered, ‘never.’
You know what I mean. You might do the same sort of thing. I am tempted to complain but I really love everything that I am doing and I have always found that I can exceed my own expectations. Once I find a way to be more busy it just stays that way – I don’t get less busy, I find ways to take on more stuff.
I like getting stuff done and I don’t really have time for most idle gossip. I don’t really care what you did last weekend. I like joking around because a little sarcasm and crude humor make the day go by with a smile. I don’t have time to repeat myself and if you need something you really need to ask because I have enough to do and I won’t butt in and volunteer my time. There are a lot of people that don’t like me and a handful of people who find value in what I bring to the table. I prefer working with the latter.
I make time for myself and that time is pretty sacred. I take days off where I rearrange my books and lay on my couch. These things are rarely spontaneous – I schedule them. I need them – lounging on my couch for 4 hours on a Sunday is an important part of my life so I schedule it in. Currently reading Hesse and Borges.
I like to eat – I have found ways to put it at the center of everything I do because chocolate, brie, crusty bread, wine, duck, a great hamburger, a dirty martini, jelly beans, crab cakes, a lovely steak. . . all these things make life bearable. Sharing them with other people makes me happy.
Someday I might stop being so busy and I might figure out how to get stuff done without ruffling any feathers but in the meantime I will eat, drink, laugh and feel lucky when I get 6 hours of sleep.
Cheers.
big windows
Sorry, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna bitch about work and office culture.
We have a boss who gives us a lot of flexibility with regards to when we are in the office. We have a lot of freedom to work weird hours, weekends, and from home when we want to. That said, we have some people who demand they have things their way. They get things like a private office, expensive computers, or an really nice chair and then act like jerks. They want their own office and THEN THEY NEVER SHOW UP. There are a few who show up and complain all the time and are assholes to everyone so I have to wonder if we are better off having the absentee jerk over the one who is within earshot. Either way, all I can think is, really? You’re gonna demand shit and then be a jerk?
I have my own office. With a nice desk and a chair. They painted the room the color I wanted it to be. It is full of plants, big windows, fancy computers – It’s great. I’m not bitching about this office snafu because I feel slighted. I have one and my ass is in it for a great deal of the hours in a given week. This issue concerns me because I have peers and staff who either sit in an area that has been converted from shared work space to their personal desk or sit at the conference table because they don’t have an office and a desk. Those people are here more than some of the folks who have an office. They never complain about things, they are thankful just to have a space where they can sit and do some quiet work. It is possible that some of them really like their space, but I call bullshit on the whole thing anyway. It just doesn’t seem like this is how you keep awesome staff working hard and doing great things.
I don’t think this is going to change. Pretty sure, actually, that it will continue. I’m just going to keep doing what I can to be more positive and not let the jerks get to me. This is the one little bit of venting I will do about it for a while because there are a whole lot of good things to think about and focus my energy on. I would much rather think about the smart, funny, hard working, dedicated people I share office space with and spend time enjoying my big windows.
screw Camus
Damn, here I go having feelings again. I hate this crap – deep breath and walk away. This should be easy, right – I’ve figured this shit out, haven’t I? Then why does it suck so much?
‘Life can be magnificent and overwhelming. that is it’s whole tragedy. without beauty, love, or danger it would almost be easy to live.’
~albert camus
I like to think that I can actually enjoy living like this. I like to believe that all the challenges in life should be seen as what makes me grow. They increase my capacity to feel joy and love and all the rest of that bullshit. I like to write about not getting attached or having expectations for an outcome, but I’m not sure it is something that I can actually do.
The truth is that I am pretty bad at embracing all of that. I get attached to shit and I don’t like feeling sad and confused. I have figured out how to avoid identifying with my emotions. I don’t let them define me, but I have a lot to figure out about how to be okay with feeling them. It seems that for now, I am doomed to feel ridiculous and confused and all kinds of other things that I am not okay with feeling even though I choose to feel them.
Oblique Strategies
I had forgotten about Brian Eno and Music for Airports. There were several years of my life where I listened to it a lot. I was reminded of it today and that made me think of Oblique Strategies – a deck of cards published in 1975 by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. There have been several editions of the deck with version 5 available now.
Each card contains some alternate idea for thinking about and dealing with a situation and although they are not always directly relevant or obvious, it is interesting to contemplate their relationship to whatever creative work you might be doing. The cards say things like:
Figure out what recipes you are using and get rid of them.
Put in earplugs.
Look at the order in which you do things.
Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list.
Accept advice.
Listen to the quiet voice.
It’s sort of like a magic 8 ball except Brian Eno wrote it and so it’s actually much cooler and perhaps useful to use the deck as a way to rethink things when you are stuck. There are a few web pages out there that let you ‘consult the deck online,’ including this one by Josh Harrison. If you prefer shuffling and selecting from the deck, you can buy the 5th edition from the Eno Shop.
miss you.
can we stop having this conversation?
Why do people want to talk about the stuff in my life that no one should talk about?
The best is when they tell me how much they love him or how disappointed they were that things ‘didn’t work out.’ I can’t name all the people who have done this. So many friends who are disappointed that a lying, cheating asshole ‘didn’t work out.’
How about when I am having dinner with friends and someone comes up to my table and starts talking about him. Are they under the impression that digging up painful memories and dragging him out of my dreams and into my waking hours is a good thing? A productive thing? There was one night when I was out drinking and someone approaches me and starts blabbering about how ‘you know – we all thought the two of you would be together forever.’
Did ya’ now.
(fuck you – please die)
Great!
(please die, pretty please)
Thanks for sharing.
(but not really. did I mention the dying thing?)
Clearly everyone is very disappointed. You all loved him. Wanna know something? Right down to the last minute of him being in this town, he has acted like a selfish idiot. I am still angry with him. I don’t forgive his string of fuck-ups. I might get over the anger but I will never trust him. So please don’t wish for a reconciliation.
I am not offended by you wanting to talk about all of this. I don’t think there is any sort of intentional effort to make me feel bad, or that you are acting out of maliciousness. It’s just something that I have no way to understand – especially if you watched me go through everything I did when I was with him.
The truth is that I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT HIM. I loved him in the most irrational way – completely absorbed in this infatuation with the most vibrant, charismatic person I have ever loved. What he did hurt me more than I ever imagined possible. So please, can we stop talking about him because it still makes me cry.
(holy shit! she actually has FEELINGS)
Anyway, this becomes a topic of conversation because he is leaving town and folks speculate about all sorts of things. Some think I am excited to see him go while others think that I am upset about his leaving. There are a few who know that I’m angry with the stupidity of the situation because of all the cities on the planet, he picks one that I love and that I visit and so there is this sense of irony that no matter what I do, he will not go away and stop being connected to my life. This is foolish. I know. Cities are big places and he has picked a big one. . .
big mountains
I have always maintained that I would not find it pleasant to die on the side of a mountain that is covered with snow and ice. Consider that some of the tallest mountains on the planet have footnotes reading something like, “for every four people that try to summit, one dies,” or perhaps you prefer these odds, “of the 258 people who have tried to climb the mountain, 36 have died.”
At first I think that dying in this way might really suck and then I think about it and wonder if someone who is on the side of an +8,000m peak, in the middle of winter, really cares about death? It really is one hell of a way to go. So I’ve decided that I’m going to climb big, cold mountains. And yes, carrying a 50lb pack, up the side of a mountain, while wearing crampons and huffing oxygen is a bit intimidating.
I am yet to figure out why I want to climb a mountain like this. I admit, there is part of me that wants to do it so that I can say I have. I think perhaps that same part of me wants to visit amazing, beautiful, awe inspiring places because I hope that doing so will create something meaningful in my life. I imagine myself standing there, looking out over the world, feeling like I have done something.
What is this insanity that I think I have to climb to the top of a mountain to feel like I have done something? Standing in a place that doesn’t have enough oxygen for me to breathe properly and is so cold that people who make one mistake die, just a name and a memory, one more life claimed by a mountain that is in a place I should not be. I can see how crazy my idea is, but I still want to do it.
I have some work to do. It might take me a while. I better get started.
we are broken
I have been over-thinking everything and having a hard time figuring out both what it is I am doing with my life and why any of it matters. I think it’s funny how the human brain has this propensity to seek and find meaning in human actions. I find most religion to be a great example of this as for the most part it is selfish, exploitative, human-centric and with it one is able to twist words to justify most actions. I believe this is is the mark of something we have created and yet we insist that it is from beyond – some outside source from which we receive this ‘wisdom.’
It unsettles me to see ‘religious’ people committing acts of terror in the world – and by this I refer to every religion for they are all overflowing with people who are so full of their own righteousness that they are blind to the idea that there might be another interpretation, moral framework, definition of ethical than what they find within themselves. ‘God’ is used for so many justifications and rationalizations that I have to think either such a being does not exist or does not care and so the application of right and wrong is a very human quality.
The sad part is that we are, the human race is, broken. Yes, we are animals. When we are angry, we strike out and when we love, we try to possess that thing and that moment that one can not possibly have. We feel fear and disgust, we laugh and appreciate beauty. The part of each one of us that makes us amazing, but we find terrifying, is how different this experience we call life is for every one of us. We are not born with instincts that lend themselves to consensus. Dogs, birds, ants, whales, lobsters, mice, horses, snakes, antelope, unicorns, sea otters – they are all better at having some consensus on how their species functions each day than we are. To assume otherwise is simply an effort to deny the unique and lonely situation in which we find ourselves.
How is it that our brain morphed into this thing that will destroy us? Why is it that even in death we cling to some not very different from our neighbor identity that we see as defining us and making each one of us unique? Instead of embracing and cherishing these differences as just a part of what it is to be human, it will be our doom, our downfall. This stubborn attachment to the smallest differences will put an end to our misery.
It’s hard, when I am surrounded by so much dissonance, to be on track with what I believe my purpose is. It is even harder to believe that it matters.
