Fear & Loathing on FaceBook Etc.

I've had the opportunity recently to reconnect with an old friend, with whom I had a terrible break back right around the time we moved to Florida. This was late-Summer of 2009. Seems like a long time ago right?

But it's fresh in my mind because it was a most intense time, there was a lot going on for me personally and for her too, I think & we were both super-stressed for our own individual reasons. But still I wonder sometimes, if it would have happened differently, if she or I could have handled it better, if the conflict hadn't taken place via email and other electronic communication media....and that is the alleged impetus for this here blog post.

You know, I'm the last thing from a Luddite but there is no TONE on these "social networking" sites we use & so much gets lost in the mix. So much can be misunderstood, misapprehended and just plain f-ed up.

And communication is hard enough as it is. I ought to know - I make my bread and butter by communicating (or trying to) within the wild and wacky world of technology/computer systems.

Witness this recent comment of mine on LinkedIn, for the thread called "Word of the Day: As BA's (Business Analysts) are expected to have excellent communication skills, I request all to post one challenging, meaningful, relevant WORD per BA per day for all to share and digest."

OK maybe I'm a little bit of a hypocrite, blogging about the evils of social media, then posting my own comments but anyways - here's my (slightly abridged) contribution -
Maybe not PARSING the thread properly, but whatevs. I'm tired, after a long day of being a BA, trying to PARSE requirements in the world of chaotic competing demands called the software-development-life-cycle (SDLC).


PARSING–verb (used with object) 
1. to analyze (a sentence) in terms of grammatical constituents, identifying the parts of speech, syntactic relations, etc.
1. to describe (a word in a sentence) grammatically, identifying the part of speech, inflectional form, syntactic function, etc.
1. Computers . to analyze (a string of characters) in order to associate groups of characters with the syntactic units of the underlying grammar.
Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/parsing

There's no elegant (or any) transition here but....I just finished watching the movie "The Yearling" made in 1946, based on the 1938 Pulitzer Prize winning book written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Starring a yummy young Gregory Peck and washed-out worried (on purpose) Jane Wyman, as his wife. And, of course, Claude Jarman Jr. as young Jody Baxter -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yearling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Jarman,_Jr.

This family living in the backwoods central Florida "scrub" at the start of the twentieth century had much to worry about, but it centered on REAL things: it was about hunting and crops and livestock and hunger, if there was a flood and the food (crops) was washed out. Or if a pet deer "et it" - as they would say, in old-agey lingo, lost long ago but captured in this wonderful book & movie.

It wasn't this...have I been de-friended on FaceBook (FB) and what does so-and-so think about my latest status/video posted, am I making the "right" connections on LinkedIn, have I gotten any "hits" on whatever dating site, and shall I Tweet my location when I go out to dinner with friends?

I don't mean to ridicule people looking for a mate on any online dating service though. I'm more making a general statement about something going on that I see...and it amounts sometimes to these shallow connections and ridiculous things that preoccupy our attention today. And, trust me, it's ALL about attention; our quality of it - or lack thereof - is reflected in the quality of our lives, I do believe.

I could barely stomach the playing of "Farmville" games on FB even before watching this movie, but now it's even more aggravating because I think about how people once had (and, of course, still do) actual REAL farms, from which they made money and subsisted. For the sweet family in "The Yearling" that farm meant life or death to them! And it occurs to me that people even 10 years ago - urban or rural - could turn off their cell phones and computers and actually pay attention to those they loved.

And not be concerned that work was trying to get ahold of them or they might be missing out on some FB status, post or newsfeed. As I tweeted, for the first time the other day, admittedly boring and ridiculous nonsense and then emailed my older brother this comment:
I think this social media shit's gone too far. How does anyone SLEEP?! :)

Maybe that's just me, projecting all over the place as I am wont to do, cuz I have definite sleep issues (among others), and maybe not everyone else does? Maybe everyone else sleeps just fine, like babies - as the saying goes. But, seriously, who does that these days? (Serious question.)

Granted I watch "The Yearling", and don't want to be a woman who has to wash the family's clothes by the creek and who yearns for a well right in her own front yard, to make a hard-scrabble life just a "mite" easier. I wash a couple of dishes, usually ungratefully grumbling, in my stainless steel sink - in my nice heated apartment - while we make dinner on an ultra-modern electric stove-range and am glad I don't live in those times. (Also glad we didn't move to Alaska as originally planned, and tried to live off the land, but that's another blog post!)

Nor do I want to go back to when women (mostly) didn't work outside the home and were - literally - property of their husbands, if they were married, and property of their fathers' if they were too young to be married yet. I work now with a few brothers who are from a very "old school" Christian faith where the women wear head-scarves (cuz hair tempts men, I guess, whatevs) and long skirts and are rarely in the work-place, and men are the without-a-doubt "Providers."

They are sweet, good men and so, despite their anti-homosexual views and a lot of other beliefs I basically find fault with, I have befriended them at work. With some of them, I have honest, self-revealing conversations in which I state my piece and we may disagree but they seem to respect me, even if they still believe that I am a "sinner" and my younger brother, especially, is going to hell.

I let them be and it doesn't really bother me. It's the work-place, whadaya gonna do? One of them said, about our very wonderful gay-friendly company, that he thought he couldn't have worked there even 5 years ago.

Meaning that he couldn't have dealt with the lesbian co-worker who actually talked openly about her partner and then "claimed" to be Christian - and also working for a gay boss. I thought about it a good long while and came back with this zinger, which actually made him laugh: "You know, I couldn't have worked with YOU even 10 years ago!" Meaning that in my more politically fervent days I would have just destroyed him. With my logical arguments that is, not like going postal or anything, don't worry. :)

I would have felt compelled to argue against his anti-lotsa stuff rhetoric and also pro-things I don't believe in - like no real "dating" in their church and what sounds like practically arranged marriages - and I would NOT have tolerated much of what he professes to be his belief, his certainty. And let's don't even open up the abortion-debate (I haven't, at work, I know that much at my old/young age). It would have been brutal - and probably destructive of work relationships - 10 years ago that is. Now I'm like "meh" - you have your beliefs, I have mine and as long as we can respect each other and get work done...

And today I truly understand that for them, their way of life makes sense. There are fewer choices for them, in a way, and it is simpler (more simple?). I only wish life could be more peaceful and simple, for all of us, and I guess what I am saying is that this social media stuff isn't making life any simpler. How are we really reaching each other? How are we connecting, really?!?

But still, I do like me some FaceBook. I caint help it (to quote "The Yearling").

Just help me with this - does anyone feel the same? Like something has gone terribly wrong, somewhere along the way? I'm not talking about our current economic slump that never seems to end, I'm talking about something's gone wrong with our food, with our families, our communities, our relationships, with one another, with our...everything.

No matter what your political orientation, or your degree of fervor. Something's gone wrong, hasn't it? We are not seeing or reaching each other. And can we make it better or do more? Maybe the challenge is met every day that we really look at and hear each other...but it's rare, you know?

Ten Reasons That I'm Grateful This Thanksgiving....

OK, I'll no longer pretend that lots of people are reading this blog and it's any kind of serious writing project, so let me subside into senseless navel-gazing like I've maybe always wanted to (if haven't done so, already, in the estimation of some).

I'll just do this list like it's a FaceBook post or my own online journal...on the eve of Thanksgiving 2010. The following Ten Reasons That I'm Grateful This Thanksgiving....

1) Not traveling during this holiday season - HELLO full body scanners and the ongoing cluster at airports! (see links below, some of them tragic video)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/23/fear_pays_chertoff_n_787711.html
http://homelandsecurityus.com/archives/4249
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFoa0LsqVbQ&feature=player_embedded#!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b_glTGOhaA&feature=fvsr

2) Whole Foods turkey - pre-cooked so all we gotta do is put it in the oven tomorrow for a bit - and all the trimmings...it was expensive, but will (hopefully) be worth it. Just the two of us, but we wouldn't have it any other way!

3) Now old (not so new) job at UNI/CARE Systems and how well it's treating me; new job for David at Nelson Publishing and how well he's doing there already -
http://www.nelsonpub.com/

4) Four days off! From both jobs...and we are so grateful for the chance to relax, to sleep in, to dream, talk, and reflect. Remember those days of mine (last year - this time) when not-working. But I was no-wheres near this happy, so god bless the good life-changes since then - and working! (never thought I would say that, but there it is...)

5) Family (mine and David's) is safe, warm, well-fed, and mostly OK, in Seattle and Milwaukee, respectively. And we'll have requisite phone calls with them tomorrow, at some point. Thankful we're all still alive to see another Holiday season, and enjoy each others' company, no matter how far away.

6) Friends: I've actually re-connected (in October, during visit to Milwaukee), with a very close friend with whom I flamed out in a spectacular way during life transitions, already well-documented here. I'm just so glad to have her back, in whatever kind of new post-break-up shape our friendship takes. As clearly told in a recent email exchange, I'd been missing a friend like her, who always has challenged me to see things in new and different ways:
Oh Christie, I just knew you would have some things to tell me about the post [my most recent blog post] that I needed to hear, that would be powerful and insightful, and this is probably why I spontaneously sent it to you. I so crave that kind of interaction, with someone thoughtful and intelligent like you! It just makes me miss your friendship all the more :)

7) Starting to plan a trip to Key West via ferry for NY's eve -
http://ferryservicestokeywest.com/?gclid=CK-4osP7uqUCFU1m7Aodn0bEbQ
If all the hotels aren't already booked. We'll find out this weekend!

8) STILL not wearing pantyhose! And no dry cleaning bills either, despite corporate jobs resumed. And jeans day every Friday...things are just way more relaxed here, dress-code wise. We love it!

9) Tomorrow's weather - 82 degrees high with 0% chance of Precipitation in Sarasota, FL
http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/wxdetail/34231?dayNum=1
35 degrees high with Rain/Snow Showers in Milwaukee -
http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/wxdetail/53211?dayNum=1
40 degrees high with Rain/Snow Showers in Seattle -
http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/wxdetail/98112?dayNum=1

10) Jonathan Franzen - he is my favorite author EVER! (or maybe just at the moment)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129799680

Seattle Visit - Post-Op

David & I went "home" to Seattle recently for a short visit. As my friend Sara said in her lovely loopy way "why are you here now?" meaning, why then and not one of the two major Holidays that are currently bearing down on us with every available resource, including my paper Starbucks coffee cup suddenly red and festooned with snowflakes, even though X-mas is still over a month away. Gah!!

And the answer was um, frequent flier miles that we couldn't use during black-out dates, and just wanting to avoid the whole holiday travel-cluster. Or something like that. Maybe I just wanted to get it over with?

The visit was hard and in the aftermath I'm trying to understand why exactly. As a default, I suspect it was probably all my fault. I was in an almost continual state of mild to high anxiety, not unlike when we visited last time, but for wholly different reasons. That last visit, back in August of 2009, I was on the brink of moving away from Milwaukee and changing my life entirely. Since then, despite some struggles along the way, it's been working out really well here in Florida. But I didn't know then how it would all go down and I was terrified by the unknown.

During this visit, it felt strange to be back, on the other side of the unknown, having survived that jump off a cliff but not being so much different or better because of it. I guess I thought or had hoped that we could leave our old lives and transcend the limitations and trivialities involved, inventing something completely brand-new & wonderful. Something I almost couldn't imagine (part of the fear), but definitely more interesting (and peaceful, I think that was the word) than what we had known.

So, this visit I think I felt like a little bit of a let-down, to myself & to others. And my anxiety seemed to be all about the trivial - worry about my still-new job, not being sure of myself there yet, the bonus of David starting a new job as soon as we got back to Sarasota, and basically just wanting to be in a better space when seeing friends & family for the first time in over a year.

Thinking about how they perceived me/us, especially after all our grand pronouncements last visit, about moving to Panama and the new life we were starting, when all we've done so far is land in the sunshine state and get jobs very similar to those we had in Milwaukee, we're just a lot warmer and I don't have to wear pantyhose to work (not a small thing, mind you).

Being somewhat vain, those extra 20 pounds I put on in the interval didn't help. What I felt, on the deepest level, was was something like "am I ok, am I really OK, please tell me I'm ok?!" And something more - about my mother's house, and my family, how well or not well we are all doing, at this stage in our lives, and how it looks to others.

But I'm also newly grasping that this has always been my disease, my problem, and part of the darkness in my soul: anxiety. Worrying WAY too much about what other people think, wanting some kind of approval to bolster my sense of sort-of security. Maybe we all do it, to some extent, maybe I'm not the only one? I thought I sensed a bit of this in my Seattle friends too, but it's sometimes hard to tell: what's the reality and what's the negative/depressive/anxiety-ridden lens through which I am realizing I tend to see the things around me? What is true?

I had a hard time seeing what was true, in Seattle at my mother's house, with the clutter & chaos (and all that it signifies) that I can't even begin to describe because you wouldn't believe me, and her deteriorating health and she's still so young, she could be making so much more of her retirement!

She is my "model of womanhood," as all mothers are to their daughters (not to sound too psychobabbley), and I don't want to end up like that. It makes me sad, and I worry about her, but I feel I can't really do anything to help and there's also a selfish part of me that just doesn't want to. I flee back to Florida, leaving my brothers to deal with it.

My older brother Dave commented upon how strange it is that my sister Stephanie and I both live so far away - she in Texas, me in Florida, which is about as far away from Seattle as you can get in the continental U.S. in case you haven't noticed - and said that he couldn't imagine living anywhere else besides Seattle. Maybe Portland, at a stretch. I sat there in his car speeding to the airport for our flight back to Sarasota and thought/voiced that I was trying to imagine feeling that way. I just couldn't.

I can't relate to feeling like Seattle is my Home anymore, which is somehow strange to say. And I don't know anymore if that's because of the places life has taken me, or my choices, or just the fact that Seattle felt so very cold, dark, damp and muddy to me during this visit; we usually visit during summer, when the weather is better, but I think we've also become rather thin-blooded from living in a much warmer climate.

All I know is that in thinking about this visit, my mother, her house, my whole family and how I breathed a huge sigh of relief upon returning to my mostly clean and definitely uncluttered apartment, I feel guilty.

I watched Grey's Anatomy the other night and totally identified with Alex Karev, when he talked about going home to Iowa and dealing with the chaos of his family. He felt like he didn't do anything - or he didn't do enough - to help them and, worst of all, he didn't stay. If you missed the episode or just for commentary on Alex's situation, you can check out the post on the Grey's Anatomy writers' blog (always a great read) -
http://www.greyswriters.com/2010/11/bill-harper-on-somethings-gotta-give.html

Near the end of the episode, Alex confesses: "I'm the ass who can't stand to be there." That's me too I guess - or that's what I feel like, on a bad day, when the lens of depression/anxiety is sharpened. OK. So. Now you know.

Horse Camp!

This is one of my husband David's favorite stories of all the childhood stories I tell, from time to time. And, like the best of jokes, he never gets tired of the punch line.







The story came to mind one night recently when I was lying there in bed, the clock telling me it was almost 12am on a work night, and I was trying to will myself to sleep. Among all the random things that came to my still not-sleepy-yet mind was the thought about how great it was that I remember the lyrics to all these old camp fire songs. Who remembers this one?

Oh, Mr. Moon, moon
Bright and shiney moon
Won’t you please shine down on me?
Oh, Mr. Moon, moon
Bright and shiney moon
Won't you come out from behind that tree?
Right over there there's a man with a gun -
Dananana - he's gonna shoot you if you try to run
so Mr. Moon, moon
Bright and shiney moon
Won’t you please shine down on
Talk about your shine on
Please shine down on me
(for the both of us - yeah!)

Maybe it's the implied jazz-hands at the end or the fact that you've got to pretend to swing a rifle for the "Dananana" moment, but I still love this song, will sometimes sing it to David, if he gets enough drinks in me and the mood strikes.

This other one came to mind - specific to a certain Pacific Northwest camp*
We're out at Camp Sealth
the campfire of our dreams
where the ocean just ripples
and sparkles and gleams
so come on and join us
for we are never blue
be a member of our happy laughing crew
- you too!
At night round the campfire
we laugh and we sing
give a cheer for Camp Sealth
and make the echoes ring
we'll cheer for our leaders
our counselors campers, too
we'll cheer for you and you and you
we do.

Are there any memories quite like the ones of camp?

For horse camp, at Camp Sealth, I was probably all of nine years old, and I just had no idea of what I was getting into. Enamored of horses since reading Black Beauty and seeing "The Black Stallion" movie, like a lot of girls my age I had those glass or plastic figurines adorning my windowsill or bureau like a badge of belonging to that secret tribe of girlhood. But, as a city kid, I had rarely been subjected to the harsh reality of these actual living breathing huge animals.

When I was finally faced with real horses, embarrassingly, I completely froze. They were so big and scary! We were expected to groom the horses, including picking their hooves! Which involved going around the back of these great big beasts which was a sure invitation for getting kicked, in my fearful opinion. There was a girl - I still remember her name, it was Shane, a strange name for a girl - who did get kicked by a horse, and she STILL wasn't afraid of them. But I was, from the get-go and never got over it. (That's the punch line, in case you missed it.)

I did enjoy parts of horse camp, but the memory I have is mostly of how I was traumatized by not quite being up to the reality of the experience and that it failed to match my expectations of how great it was going to be, that I formulated beforehand, while reading the camp brochures and talking my parents into it. (Thanks mom and dad! And sorry it didn't work out so well, I know that was hard-earned money you spent on spoiled little me.)

It's a really good life lesson, actually. Had I only internalized that lesson then, I hazard to guess I could have saved myself a lot of suffering since, around expectations, knowing your limits, how to handle fear, being in the present etc. But who becomes so sage at the age of nine? Maybe that's expecting too much again. Hmmmm.

At the end of my horse camp experience, I got a patch like everyone else (it being a Camp Fire camp and me being a Camp Fire Girl, it was all about the patches back then). The patch was ocher-yellow with a horse head emblazoned on it, but other campers had ones with a rope around the horse head and mine had none.

I noticed this and it bothered me. Talk about a kick in the self-esteem! I had always done well at most everything...but knew that in this case I didn't deserve much more. I had failed at being a true horse-girl, despite my fantasies and my ambitions. But I did the best that I could with what I had in me at that time. And what a great story it has given me to tell years later!

*It's so cool to see that my very first summer camp is still in operation. See hyperlink below and note the Specialty Programs section which mentions Horse Camp! (in its sugar-coated version)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Sealth

Labor Day Lullaby

How many Dar Williams songs have I posted on this blog? Not so many that I can't post another! For it is Labor Day weekend, which always makes me anticipate the end of summer, like a lot of people probably. And this song just captures it perfectly - the sadness of things ending, the excitement and fear of things to come, and the overall sense of longing. For what? I dunno, but it seems to be the quintessential human condition.

End Of The Summer
by Dar Williams
The summer ends and we wonder where we are
And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car
And you both look so young
And last night was hard, you said
You packed up every room
And then you cried and went to bed
But today you closed the door and said
"We have to get a move on.
It's just that time of year when we push ourselves ahead,
We push ourselves ahead."

And it was cloudy in the morning
And it rained as you drove away
And the same things looked different
It's the end of the summer
It's the end of the summer,
When you move to another place

And I feel like the neighbor's girl who will never be the same
She walked alone all spring,
She had a boyfriend when the summer came
And he gave her flowers in a lightning storm
They disappeared at night in green fields of silver corn
And sometime in July she just forgot that he was leaving
So when the fields were dying, she held on to his sleeves
She held on to his sleeves

And she doesn't want to let go
'Cause she won't know what she's up against
The classrooms and the smart girls
It's the end of the summer
It's the end of the summer
When you hang your flowers up to dry

And I had a dream it blows the autumn through my head
It felt like the first day of school
But I was going to the moon instead
And I walked down the hall
With the notebooks they got for me
My dad led me through the house
My mom drank instant coffee
And I knew that I would crash
But I didn't want to tell them
There are just some moments when your family makes sense
They just make sense

So I raised up my arms and my mother put the sweater on
We walked out on the dark and frozen grass
The end of the summer
It's the end of the summer
When you send your children to the moon

The summer ends and we wonder who we are
And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car
And today I passed the high school, the river, the maple tree
I passed the farms that made it
Through the last days of the century
And I knew that I was going to learn again
Again, in this less hazy light
I saw the fields beyond the fields
The fields beyond the fields

And the colors are much brighter now
It's like they really want to tell the truth
We give our testimony to the end of the summer
It's the end of the summer,
You can spin the light to gold.
*****************************************************************
In particular, this Labor Day weekend I'm remembering how at this-time-last-year (the type of reflection I often undertake, the luxury - or curse - of one who keeps journals and has that historical record), we were newly arrived in Florida after two and 1/2 long days driving from Milwaukee, in our two cars when we meant to make it with one. At the last minute we decided that we had no choice but to rent a car for the journey and all our stupid stuff. We bought walkie-talkies on the way out of town, so that we could stay in touch during our road-trip.

And what an adventure it was. After enduring the ridiculous Chicago-area traffic, we stopped over the first night in Lowell, IN, at a Super 8 motel that was barely more than a trucker rest-stop. Superrrr I said...upon viewing a room so scummy that I'm surprised there weren't cockroaches in the too-small bed we shared for too few hours of rest (and if they were there, we were too exhausted to notice them).

Up at dawn painfully, I remember thinking, and probably voicing to David, over horrible in-room coffee with powdered creamer: I'm not sure I'm gonna make it.

But make it I did, to Chattanooga, TN with enough time to go out for Mexican dinner, and a much nicer hotel in which to slumber that evening. The extra night on the road that we hadn't planned for meant an extra day on the car rental, which turned out to be not quite the big expensive deal I feared. But as I wrote in my journal "...it was a long, hard day's drive because I only got about 4 hours sleep and was worried about my longevity. Eating only coffee, walnuts, and beef/bison jerky the whole way and so constipated that it's painful and feels like giving birth or something. Hoping to make it to FL without needing medical attention. :)"

And yet, magically, the following night at about 11pm (Wednesday Sept. 2nd) we arrived safely in Sarasota, thankfully without needing to stop en route at an emergency room. Once we got to David's friend Ed's comfortable 2 bedroom house, where he said we could stay "as long as we liked" or however long it took us to find a situation that was right for us, I felt like I could finally
start breathing again. And then there was a Thursday and a Friday and by the weekend (Sunday Sept 6th) I was writing in my journal "it already feels like we've sort of been here forever, but in a good way."















On Labor Day 2009, Monday Sept. 7th, what seemed so strange was just the experience of our first national holiday completely untethered from family and home. A holiday which meant much less to us because we were both still not-working and so it wasn't that big deal of having an extra day off. We went to Myakka State Park, slogged through trails of swamp and marvelled at the alligators. And felt all those Fall feelings, though it was still hot as any summer.

Home Sweet "Luxury Apartment" Home

Uncharacteristic days of rain that just happened to coincide with our move-in weekend (though fortunately the skies opened up only AFTER we'd finished lugging up three flights of stairs our few possessions, for a record breaking 1&1/2 hours start to finish time), prevented me from posting pretty pictures of our new apartment until now. But here they are, finally!

We are now happily ensconced into a 2 bedroom, 2 bath place that is closer to my great new job, with much more room to spread out and actually SEE what we still own. The goal being to continue getting rid of what we don't need or use on a daily basis. Meanwhile we're also able to make our living spaces much more Feng Shui - such as having a true "sleep sanctuary" in the bedroom where all we really have is well, a bed for sleeping and a couple night stands with a lamp. (I think we still need to get s 2nd lamp for true Feng Shui "balancing" but whatever...)

We are still sans most of the furniture that would have us qualify as nesting in this new home, and we are determined to avoid that trap, since the plan is to only stay here in Florida for another two years (at most), while we work and save money for the next venture. We call the living room our yoga studio since all we have there is our yoga mats and some other exercise equipment. Though precious little yoga has been done while we're settling in, I have to admit....

This past weekend I finally got to use the beautiful pool and it was woooonderful! I may never go to the beach again, at least during the summer months, as it was much cooler & more refreshing than the heated up Gulf of Mexico waters right now.

Views towards the North and Southeast, during sun-almost-setting evening hours -







































We have a pond! That all our windows and screened-in lanai look over -



















And for a body of water that's really just a hole in the ground, dug up when they built this place maybe 25 years ago, there's a fair bit of wildlife. The frogs go berserkus after sun-down, there's quite a few ducks that call it home, and the most adorable turtles, one of which I was able to get a snapshot tonight -







































As David commented "it seems like a really healthy pond."



















Though I still wouldn't want to go swimming in its murk, despite the absence of any alligator that we've heard of - too bad huh? (see my alligator video posted on FaceBook, tooo funny)

But not too bad for the reams of dogs that appear to inhabit this small apartment complex - it's very pet-accommodating and although we won't be getting any ourselves, we hope to meet and become friends with all the dogs we can.

Maybe even become pet grandparents to our favorite ones, like we sort of did with the big fluffy orange cat "Bob" at our first Florida apartment, who we still miss now we've moved away.














Sort of...he was an ornery unaffectionate fellow who had to be approached very gingerly from just the right angle to be petted without hissing :) But he filled up my cavern of cat-loneliness to some small degree, since we had to give Colby away, about a year ago (see at least one previous blog post).


And did I mention - screened-in lanai?! Gone are the days of being eaten up to bits by mosquitoes in the evening, and that alone makes the move worth it. Along with the shorter commute, his & her bathrooms, and all manner of other new benefits that have us feeling like we do live in a "luxury apartment." I never would have necessarily seen myself living in a more "bland" place like this, but now that I'm here, I am loving it.

Boring Blog Post

It recently occurred to me that I'd best NOT post all my attempts at witty remarks and life updates on FaceBook or else I'll never write another blog post again.

Because I'm back at work doing a professional IT job not that wildly different from what I did in Milwaukee and - let's face it - while I'm still enjoying it, the routine is boring. 9am-5pm (with lunch eaten at desk, invariably), Monday through Friday I'm expected to be a specific somewhere, doing a specific something. And, although I'm embracing the sense of purpose re-instilled in my life, the resurrection of structure I was sadly, sorely missing (and loving the resumption of regular, decent-sized paychecks, quite frankly), it is a little less exciting when you wake up in the morning knowing basically what shape the day will take. But, it's also largely reassuring. That not knowing can cause anxiety, especially for one as already-prone to it as me.

I had a realization on my 18.2-mile, mundane drive home from work this evening, somewhere between filling the car with gas and stopping to get a take-out pizza for dinner: I'm a full-blown suburban commuter now. I drive from a smaller community to a larger one for work, and back again. Just like a lot of people I used to mildly disdain, when we lived in the city and only drove 3 miles along the lovely Milwaukee lakeshore to get to the place where we made the money to support our lives.

I used to wonder what made it worth it to them. I genuinely wanted to know if these people who faced all kinds of ridiculous Interstate traffic on a daily basis, had ever really counted the cost of gas (and all that time! Quality of Life, for heaven's sake!) versus lower housing costs (real or perceived), increased safety (again, real or merely perceived), and more space for the kids. Or was it just habit, what they grew up with and were used to? Having been raised in an urban environment and choosing to live urban for most of my adult life so far, I had all kinds of opinions and judgments about this. To my mind at that time, a commute like that just wasn't worth it and I fundamentally couldn't relate to those who made that choice for themselves.

Granted I don't have to drive Interstate now (not like I did during my brief tenure at Fucking-ClickBooth - but that's another story, of bitterness, that I unfortunately don't have enough personal growth to let go of yet). I don't do the kind of drive that those nice suburban people at NM still undertake, on a daily basis. But, because I literally breathe a sigh of relief when leaving the densest part of the drive on Highway 41 and tonight while rounding the corner of Laurel onto Bayshore drive and seeing the greater expanses of green and palm trees, I felt myself relaxing further, I think that I may finally get it. It's this feeling of retreat from so much hectic-ness and the understanding that increased space really does have benefits, that I never would have been able to grasp if I wasn't in this position now.

But the best part of the realization is a reminder of the revolutionary thought I had ages ago, that I think I already blogged about, but which I'm not even sure where it came from - "maybe all my ideas are wrong?!" - in full, real-life illustration. That you can challenge even the most dearly-regarded assumptions or long-held beliefs about what's right or wrong, and thereby expand your thinking and perspective. It's a fantastic lesson, that jibes with the fantastic books I've been reading lately (and listening to on CD*, during my "long" commute). It's a lesson that I apparently have to keep learning, in new and ever more evocative ways.

Now, I'm not suddenly converted to commuter-ism and endorsing a lifestyle that involves burning even more fossil fuels than is necessary (hello BP oil spill!), really I'm not. I'm newly appreciating our original choice to live away from the city of Sarasota, even while I'm struggling with the distance and talking with David on a daily basis about moving closer to my work. Sometimes that simply involves me complaining about how much driving I'm doing these days (I figure if logic doesn't work, I'll just wear him down with whining).

I even looked at an apartment that's walking distance to my job, which would leave our one car for him, who admittedly still has a sort-of-kind-of-job just a couple miles away from where we currently live, which he's been green-biking to ever since I started. We're in that painful process of negotiation (shall I do the commute or should he? maybe he can soon arrange to tele-commute most days?) and who knows what will happen. But we know that it doesn't make sense to move until I'm past my 3-month "probationary period" at the new job (ends August 18th), even though it's going so well I'd be willing to risk it, especially if we found a great place.

And then today I tried an alternate route recommended by David's friend Ed, the guy who brought us down to this particular part of Florida, with whom we had dinner last Saturday. We took him to his favorite Thai restaurant in the southern part of Sarasota county (not Sarasota city proper, which is quite small, actually), to thank him again for housing us when we first arrived in FL - how much it meant to us, to have a safe place to land. He's very knowledgeable about all things Sarasota, including some neighborhoods closer to my work (sort of half way inbetween), of which I wasn't aware. And all the neighborhoods to avoid, of course.

The recommended shortcut was pure magic...gone were the endless billboards and fast-food establishments that scream at you to stop and buy something, gone were the masses of cars to contend with, and the non-stop concrete and traffic lights. Instead it was houses on either side of the still 45-mile an hour two-lane road, and lots of green space, including palm trees! Genius, as I told my husband upon returning home. It just might save my soul, until we move to Sarasota.

My final thought about my newly employed status, what I miss most about not-working, or even the Census job I did for two or three whole weeks, is the flexibility. Now I have to figure out where in my schedule I can fit a yoga class, or meditation, and I'm still pondering when in the hell I can start back up with jogging, given the near-constant heat. And dinner is always a challenge (witness the take-out dinner mentioned above). But it's worth it, and I'm grateful. We'll save money and get to Panama eventually, and in the meantime we'll see what else I can make of it.

*For a great read that's all about "seeing things anew" read (or listen to) Emotional Alchemy by Tara Bennett-Goleman. I just sent a copy to my older brother for his birthday, pray God he reads it, cuz it's good!

Memorial Day Weekend Retrospective

So, we were in Fort Lauderdale this long holiday weekend, just getting away from the usual surroundings and enjoying a nice hotel with a pool ("my kingdom for a pool!" I've exclaimed ever since we arrived in Florida, and if my new job continues to go well & we end up moving closer to it, I may eventually get my wish). It's kind of funny, because what do you do for vacation when you live in "Paradise"? Well, you take a road trip across this skinny state to visit a different paradise, I guess...but the Atlantic side of Florida is much more crowded, developed and expensive than where we live, and it made us quite happy to get home safely to our sweet, quiet little community on the Gulf side.

I'm very conscious this weekend of the fact that May 29th marked one year since I left my job at Northwestern Mutual. I can't believe it's been a whole year but, to risk a platitude, they do go faster as we get older, don't they? This anniversary has given me much needed pause to reflect on that choice and all that has happened to me and to us since.

Looking back I can see that yes, it was a big deal to leave that job and embark on this new chapter of our lives, but maybe not as big a deal as I made it. I admit that between being suddenly free from the Monday through Friday 8-5 grind, starting this blog and going through the arduous process of saying goodbye to an animal, material objects, and people that were important to me, I may have become a bit self-involved. OK, probably more than just a bit but, in my defense, I'd really never done anything like that before. Moving to Milwaukee at the age of 23 for the clearly defined goal of attending graduate school was plenty scary, but nothing like what it felt like to be untethered that way.

I think I also went a little crazy (even more than my usual insanity), from the change, the anxiety and pressure of such a big move, and lost whatever perspective I had. And that may have had something to do with the big blow-up with Christie, my one really close friend in Milwaukee, right before our August trip to Seattle and subsequent leaving Milwaukee, with nothing but what we could fit into two cars, in early Sept. Those of you with whom I spoke about this incident know what a devastating and horrible experience it was for me, but I never did publish much on this blog about it. The whole thing just felt too vulnerable and anguished, I guess.

I actually ended up losing another close friend during the course of my big life-transition and I still don't have either of these two friends back, maybe never will, but I'd like to think that the situation isn't hopeless and life is long. If at some point either of them are interested in reconciliation, maybe I can try to repair the damage. I've learned a lot of things in the interim about how to listen better and exercise more patience and compassion (see The Art of Happiness, a wonderful book I've been reading lately), and maybe that would help.
http://www.theartofhappiness.com/

My temporary taking-leave of my senses probably also had something to do with how hard it was once we'd moved down here and the first flush of being in a new, surprisingly gorgeous environment had subsided. That's when the lack of income started to really worry me and - more than anything - I just didn't know what the hell to do with myself, ultimately. I had too much time on my hands, was uncertain and guilty because I wasn't using that valuable time to be productive, in any sense of the word, and as it turned out I didn't know what to do with the freedom I'd always coveted.

I felt paralyzed, like I couldn't make decisions about my own life as an adult, in my untethered state, and that seemed pathetic. Above all, I wanted the transition to FL and the next step to Panama to happen easily and instantly and when it didn't, when there was plenty of difficulty and depression, I felt like I had failed somehow.

But the good news is that things have been steadily improving and so, despite these well-documented rough patches, I can honestly say that we made the right decision to leave Milwaukee and move here. This has been a beautiful choice for us, despite all the misery, fear, doubt, regret etc. along the way. David has reminded me that when (not if, but when), we move to Panama it's bound to be hard at first also. But hopefully having gone through this experience I will be able to approach that next challenge with more strength and confidence and faith.

We've learned what it was like to reduce our possessions and start a whole new life, and I've realized how important it is to try different things in order to discover your limitations and what you really want. Like how the horrible experience at FCB (Fucking ClickBooth!) made me appreciate work cultures and processes that are sane, and being an Executive Recruiter taught me that I will never ever be able to successfully do a sales job. I'm pleased to say that, uncharacteristically, I don't feel the slightest bit bad about that. :)

There's still a lot of exciting possibilities for us, so this is not just an exchange of IT jobs in Milwaukee for same in Florida, at least not in the long-term. For instance, I recently met a woman who wants to do sustainable farming with small crops, a few animals and water/solar energy. We hit it off and she mentioned that she might need a live-in couple to help her with the project. This same woman also has a friend with property in Panama, who may need a caretaker - exactly the kind of situation we'd been hoping for.

But for now, we're content to be here in Paradise, enjoying the glorious weather, trying not to worry about the house we still own, or the oil spewing into the Gulf, or the coming (more active this year, I hear) hurricane season. Just doing what needs to be done at the moment, while we continue to figure out what's next. I've got an IT job that I'm enjoying, at what seems like a good stable company. Which frees David to continue doing less well-paid but ultimately hopefully more profitable entrepreneurial things with a couple of business partners locally. One of which is creating and administering penny auction sites, the latest phenomenon on the internet. Check it out, if you haven't heard of them yet:
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Bit-The-Penny-Auctions-Sites---A-Mathemitcal-anaylsis-for-the-novice
http://www.squidoo.com/pennyauction

David's been working like a dog on his penny auction site project and, whether or not it turns out to be profitable, he's learned a lot and I'm so proud of him. One way or another we're going to save money and see what develops for our next step. It doesn't all have to happen easily and in an instant, and I think I'm finally learning how to be more patient. And, OK I'm still a little bit self-involved but then, who isn't?

Word-Girl (Where Have U Been?)

I was Word-Girl at my old job. This meant that, among the techy-geeks and businessy-folks with whom I worked at Northwestern Mutual (NM), I was at least sometimes acknowledged as the resident, self-appointed language expert. Or, to put it more realistically, I was known to my friends and co-workers as a person who cared deeply about things like spelling, grammar, literature and just generally finding the right word for any particular situation. The kind of person who would stop the conversation to say "oooh that's a good word" as they came up, and who relished the chance to spell a word for someone or - better yet - edit an email or entire document.

My husband still routinely asks me for help with spelling words, and I was tacit Word-Girl again for a milli-second at my last job as an Executive Recruiter, where I was asked how to spell - no joke - words like "informational" and "situation." Not a lot of PhDs at the Executive Recruiting gig, god love 'em, those salesy people.

Not the longer, more complicated words that I learned to love, while studying for the GRE, during and after college, the words that roll off the tongue with so much pleasure and more precise meaning than the shorter, more general versions. Words like "recalcitrant," "languorous," "mitigate," "anomaly" or even "in toto" (for you Latin-lovers and mentioned in homage of my equally literate ex-boss Rich).
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/recalcitrant
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/languorous
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mitigate
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anomaly
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/in+toto

Words I used (use) not to puff myself up or put anyone else down, not to intimidate or act like I'm-so-much-smarter, but just because I enjoy them. Does anyone else out there who loves words like me understand?!? I admit to still having trouble with the word "occasional" (I always want to spell it with TWO Ss) and one other word with double consonants that I can't remember off-hand, and I'm sure there's more than one mis-spelling in my blog posts ("mea culpa" for the Latin-lovers among my readers).

And then there's those words that can be spelled two different ways, and both are correct, such as the word mis-spelling itself - is it misspelling or mis-spelling - to hyphen or to not?! Dictionary.com isn't conclusive. (And don't even get me started on the English versions of words, like "realised," "favourite, " and "colour" etc.).

But I love it all, and I know that this is what I should be doing with my life, because they say when you're doing something and you lose track of time, it is your calling, no longer just a job. Now if only someone would pay me to spell words for them or critique their emails, I'd be set....

I aspire to become Word-Girl again, at the job I will hopefully get, as a QA Analyst at Jackson Hewitt. A place that, as I wrote to an old co-worker, and after my traumatic experience at Fucking ClickBooth (the only way I can think of it, from now on, almost like its own acronym! FCB) - "reminded me so much of NM I could have wept."

Just because (as I went on to write her) "I felt like I could fit in there, the atmosphere was so familiar" and since I am resigned to the fact that I have to work in Florida for a while, I am seeking a place to call work-home again, and I so hope that place could be it.

My final thoughts on the subject, in the email to my dear old co-worker/friend: "I guess I miss the familiar, at least when it comes to having to go to work again. I love the Florida Flip-Flop lifestyle but in terms of working, it sucks and I miss NM. It sounds crazy, when I always wanted to leave that place, but does that make any kind of sense?! I don't really expect u to understand, I'm just venting, or something. I never knew how good I had it, is what it comes down to."

And ah, there's the lesson again. There are words and there are Words, but there is no word quite like Regret. Or Hindsight. And no one (usually) needs any help to spell them.

February: Facing The Ever-More Uncertain Future

On the Sunday afternoon after my first full week back at home not-working, what do I have to say for myself? First of all, that I'm extremely grateful to get out of that crazy place called Clickbooth, especially after the awful way it ended. Yes, they actually fired me just 24 hours after I naively, mistakenly let it be known to my ridiculous manager that I was struggling and unhappy and thinking of leaving.

This "manager" went from trying to convince me to stay on a Wednesday, saying it would get "less chaotic" soon and "this business is about to take off, it could end up being very lucrative if you stick it out," to pulling me into a conference room with the HR manager on Thursday, and asking me to sign a letter that stated I was being terminated for poor performance. What the hell?! Needless to say, I refused to sign their letter, and I had a few choice words for them before my desk was packed up for me and I was ushered out. (Still quite professional, mind you, just questioning how this was happening with no warning.)

I'm still trying to make sense of what exactly happened there, why it all went so bad so quickly. Was it really just a case of a totally disorganized young company, with shitty software, no requirements process to speak of, and completely incompetent leadership? (i.e. there was absolutely no definition of discreet projects, just one big blob of "work" that needed to get done asap, because the consensus there was to not "believe" in Project Management - wha-huh?!) Or was there something more I could have done to adjust to the chaos, deal with how vague & confusing everything remained even after three weeks, and get more requirements produced so they wouldn't scape-goat me? Is it possible I'm not a good BA, despite all past success?! (I hate that I allowed the situation to have produced that kind of self-doubt in me, btw.) Whatever, I'm just so relieved to not have to go back to a place that was literally driving me insane.

To be honest, I actually was doing more than "thinking" of leaving because I did have a job possibility in the pipeline when this all went down. And after three interviews, I decided to take it - Executive Recruiter, starting Monday March 8th, my first commissions job ever! But I'm still applying to Business Analyst jobs, just in case, knowing now how quickly things can go south. I'm doing this despite being a little gun-shy about BA-work and really rather wanting to try something new. David is trying to convince me to not give up on IT and to know that not every place is going to be the nightmare Clickbooth was. Besides, if I let them sway me from going after another well-paying IT job with benefits, then truly "the terrorists have won." :)

So now the future is more uncertain than ever, it seems. Because David's contract job is looking more and more tenuous (and becoming less tolerable by the day), so he's casting about for something else too. It's a beautiful sunny afternoon and we are both holed up in our apartment applying to IT jobs in Jacksonville (Atlantic side) and Tampa, which would probably require relocation, which wouldn't be a huge deal since we are so much more mobile now but still would be a change, a certain amount of life-disruption.

We've even discussed returning to Milwaukee but I don't know that there would be jobs for us there, the only real reason to go back, cuz it's certainly not the weather! I heard it was snowing again just the other day....who knows maybe we'll just say screw it and go to Panama, even with the little money we have. If only that damn house would sell - my mantra for 2009-2010, and I'm as tired of hearing myself say it as you probably are, dear readers.

I'm trying to take the lessons from the whole experience, to make it more than just useless suffering, and yet still move on from it, not dwell too much. I do feel like I got my life back somehow. And so the first thing I did post-firing, after crying in the car, calling David, and making my final commute from Sarasota back to Nokomis, was laundry. At 2pm on a Thursday afternoon - go figure!