I Hate My Sister

I am really excited to see my sister, when I go to visit her a week from this Friday!  And, obvs I don't really hate her, but it's still a great song... :)

An old blog post w/video comes to mind and just has to be shared, again!
http://www.yousurecantalkbaby.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html

Juliana Hatfield "My Sister"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cer5n10rXAg
My sister... My sister... My sister.

I hate my sister, she's such a bitch.
She acts as if she doesn't even know that I exist.
But I would do anything to let her know I care.
But I am only talking to myself 'cos she isn't there.

My sister...
I love my sister, she's the best.
She's cooler than any other girl that I have ever met.
She had the greatest band, she had the greatest guy.
She's good at everything and doesn't even try.

(Chorus)
She's got a wall around her nobody can climb.
She lets her ladder down for those who really shine.
I tried to scale it, but to me she's blind.
So I lit a firecracker, went off in my eye.

I miss my sister, why'd she go?
She's the one who would have taken me
To my first all-ages show.
It was the Violent Femmes and the Del Fuegos,
Before they had a record out. Before they went gold,
And started to grow.

I miss my sister. I miss my sister.
I miss my sister. I really miss her.
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/juliana+hatfield/my+sister_20076531.html

Thank you, thank you, thank you

Not to be TOO bipolar here but this is how I truly feel, when things are going well between me and David.  It does sometimes *happen* ~

Let Me Count The Ways
by Yoko Ono  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA2CTqWkmmo

Let me count the ways how I love you

It's like that gentle wind you feel at dawn

It's like that first sun that hits the dew

It's like that cloud with a gold lining telling us softly

That it'll be a good day, a good day for us

Thank you, thank you, thank you

Let me count the ways how I miss you

It's like that oak tree in my childhood garden

It's like that first summer I spent in Egypt

It's like that warm evening you read to me

Both knowing deeply

That it's a good time, a good time for us

Thank you, thank you, thank you

Let me count the ways how I see you

It's like that lake in the mountain you heard about

It's like that autumn sky that stays so blue

It's like that air around me that holds me gently

Whispering strongly that you're always there, always for me

Thank you, thank you, thank you
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/john_lennon_yoko_ono/let_me_count_the_ways.html

Like I'm Made of Glass/Like I'm Made of Paper

Does it make me extra-damaged or just pathetic (or more interesting maybe), that I sometimes feel this way about my own marriage/husband?

Just the tearing down part and only sometimes, let's be clear...when we fight, which can be brutal...and happened tonight so I'm really just venting!  Not really wanting to be more interesting....

But I truthfully FEEL like this sometimes - "like I'm made of glass/like I'm made of paper" - like I can't defend myself and I need to stand up - like a Skyscraper, a la Demi Levato. :)

"Skyscraper"
by Demi Levato
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_8ydghbGSg

Skies are crying, I am watching
Catching tear drops in my hands
Only silence as it's ending
Like we never had a chance
Do you have to make me feel like
There's nothing left of me?

You can take everything I have
You can break everything I am
Like I'm made of glass
Like I'm made of paper
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a skyscraper
Like a skyscraper
 
As the smoke clears, I awaken
And untangle you from me
Would it make you feel better
To watch me while I bleed?
All my windows still are broken
But I'm standing on my feet
 
You can take everything I have
You can break everything I am
Like I'm made of glass
Like I'm made of paper
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a skyscraper
Like a skyscraper

Go run, run, run
I'm gonna stay right here,
Watch you disappear
Yeah, oh
Go run, run, run
Yeah, it's a long way down
But I am closer to the clouds up here
 
You can take everything I have
You can break everything I am
Like I'm made of glass
Like I'm made of paper
Oh Oh
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a skyscraper
Like a skyscraper

(Like a skyscraper)

Like a skyscraper
Like a skyscraper
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/demilovato/skyscraper.html

YogaStrange

I had the best YogaDay today. 

There was a woman making sex noises in my 10am Hot Power Yoga class, which kinda cracked me up.

But also got me to thinking: could yoga be *better than sex*?  I've been reading the Yoga Sutras lately and so I wonder...

I know the immediate answer: depends what yoga, depends what sex. :) 

She was really enjoying her poses though, let me tell you and I had to admire (on some level), her enjoyment and lack of inhibitions.

But there was a guy there for his very first yoga class...I also wonder what the hell HE thought?!  Fortunately, he was there with his girlfriend who is going through a new session of the same Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) I did last summer.  So, I assume she explained it to him later.  I would like to have heard that conversation though.  

Then I stuck around after class to talk to the teacher who also assists in the YTT program and has become my friend.  I love this woman, she is my hero largely because she makes a full-time living teaching yoga and working at the studio.  She was a literature major in college, and I love talking to her because I feel we have so much in common.

Not just yoga and books but also some life experiences and strengths/weaknesses.  And, maybe because she loves to read, she also tells great stories! 

Today she told me about how this past week she had a disgruntled student in one of her yoga classes.  This man was large in size (think tall, not necessarily rotund), and walked in with an attitude, asking for - or rather demanding - free yoga classes because he had shown up for class earlier in the week and the doors to the studio were locked, for some reason.

He was very sure something was owed to him for some affront, and so he came into the class with a certain energy, let's say, that didn't really work for anyone around him. 

It went from there...she told me about how she tried to handle the situation, talking reasonably to this gentleman, and when it spiraled out of control & he wouldn't leave the safe space of the yoga sanctuary that he was threatening, she finally had to call the cops. 

The cops at a yoga studio!

God, that's strange.  And kinda funny, unless you were in the midst of the altercation as my yoga-teacher-friend was.  I think (from what I heard, second-hand), that she handled it beautifully.  I can't imagine what I would have done.

I can barely handle just figuring out how to teach with confidence when I have sweet students who tell me afterwards what a great class it was!  (This happened just yesterday, and bless that one student, for I am still so uncertain and want very badly to be a good yoga teacher but have so little time and energy to give to it...)

She and I talked about what it must be like to be a yoga teacher in a real city (which Sarasota just, isn't), where you never know what problems can walk off the street and plop down onto a mat in your class and you have to handle it.  It made me think that YTT might need to include some sessions on how to handle *the general public* who can show up in your classes, which can include the one-off strange person who doesn't seem to get it.

That we are all there to experience some peace & calm & stillness...not have a bizarre fight about free classes.  All I have to say to someone like that is ~ with incredible loving-kindness and sympathy ~ get some help, and Namaste MotherFucker, but stay out of my yoga classes!  :)

Heartlessly Helping Himself to Her Bad Dreams

I would hope that anyone who is married for more than a few years can feel me when I say how hard it can be.  How we truly try to stay in touch with each other but it isn't easy.  We have so much going on, so much that gets in the way of true emotional intimacy.  So just love as much as you can, and communicate love, and stay there fiercely.   

Helplessly Hoping

by Crosby Stills & Nash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tw7hk_Hd1M

Helplessly hoping her harlequin hovers nearby
Awaiting a word
Gasping at glimpses of gentle true spirit he runs
Wishing he could fly
Only to trip at the sound of goodbye

Wordlessly watching he waits by the window and wonders
At the empty place inside
Heartlessly helping himself to her bad dreams he worries
Did he hear a good-bye?
Or even hello?

They are one person
They are two alone
They are three together
They are for each other

Stand by the stairway you'll see something certain to tell you
Confusion has its cost
Love isn't lying it's loose in a lady who lingers
Saying she is lost
And choking on hello

They are one person
They are two alone
They are three together
They are for each other

We've Gone Down So Far, But I Don't Want It

I Don't Want It
by Ween 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoAJolzI5Ms  

Did we miss the moon?
I'd lie in your arms if I could
Such a common pain
Repeats itself again and again

Flowers grow in the springtime and leaves fall from the trees
I've been gone for so long, you just threw away the keys
I understand it, but I don't want it

I know it so well, you tripped me and I laughed when you fell
This isn't how it should be
I've let you drift so far, from me

But please hold onto the memories
Before we really crash and burn
We've got ourselves so wrapped up that we've forgotten how to learn
I understand it, but I don't want it  

http://www.lyricsdepot.com/ween/i-dont-want-it.html

Testing Tax Software is Terrifying...and Surprisingly Somewhat Satisfying

No one said it would be easy
But no one said it'd be this hard
No one said it would be easy
No one thought we'd come this far
"No One Said It Would Be Easy"
by Sheryl Crow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Af1qeouMc

I wish it hadn't been this hard but it has.

I came to this new job at Jackson Hewitt (JH) back in February and wanted to understand it all in an instant (or at least six months), thought with my many years of IT experience it should be easy, but I've learned that some things you have to experience for yourself in order to understand.

The concept of a "season" for software is new to me and what it boils down to is our busiest time of year, making sure the tax software is bug-free(ish) and ready to be used by all the tax preparers across the country, is right around Thanksgiving - and Christmas - and New Years.  No one gets to take time off during this period, totally unlike what I experienced in Milwaukee at Northwestern Mutual.  There, things would go dead for a good 2-3 weeks and if you were so unlucky as to have no vacation left for the year (always the case with me), you were left in a virtual dead zone at work; it got real quiet and various projects usually screeched to a halt because people often weren't around that you needed to move things forward.

I was trying to figure out why it felt so different at work, at JH, this time of year ("the most wonderful time of year" after all), and it finally dawned on me that it's because everyone is there at work, pulling together and working hard and trying to make often ridiculous deadlines.  It was downright festive the day before the long Christmas weekend (when the office does *close* for two days:  today, Xmas Eve day and of course Xmas day as well), with people bringing in cakes & cookies and giving out Xmas cards, candy and gift cards.  It was so much fun!

I say that JH "closes" for Christmas only because so many people keep right on working, either remotely or coming into the office like I did today for a bit.  If only to "lead by example" for my team:  a group of 4 full-time and 8 seasonal testers who work their asses off, even while some have a slightly disgruntled attitude that I try to just sear away with my positive sunny outlook on a daily basis.  :)  I inherited A LOT of crap (and not all just personnel-related), when I took on the role of Team Lead back in August, but I am doing my best to handle it.  I wrote on FaceBook to a co-worker who recently left JH in large part because of how hard it was to be on a team that was so dysfunctional "today I found myself saying 'I'm staying positive even if it KILLS me...and it just might' LOL."

And it is not just the difficulty of trying to uplift a team caught in downward spiral of sinking morale and overall negativity, it's been learning how to be effective at testing tax software - not as easy as it might sound!  Due to various factors that I wouldn't bore my worst enemy with, this job has challenged all my well-founded ideas of how to test software, how to manage code, how to manage change to the software and how to document the requirements and determine "expected results" or behavior of said software.  It has been a HARD learning process!  And at many times I have wanted to give up, to flee, to find another job or just to quit even without another job to go to.  That's how bad it got for me, emotionally, at times.

Yet, as I have done already with so many difficult situations in my life, I persisted.  And slowly but surely I feel like I have *gotten* it...the rhythm of the work, the patterns of the software (my husband often says that so much of working in IT is about "pattern recognition"), the organization of the VOLUMES of test cases that have to be completed.  I think I sort of see a method to the "madness" as I thought it all was when I inherited it, even while I recognize possible opportunities for changing it, to make it better, more sane.

And I recently found myself writing a co-worker from my last job this email:  "But, strangely, I'm actually pretty happy at my work now, it's a recent feeling so cross fingers for me - but it feels like it's kinda paying off, thanks to some tenaciousness on my part and then just the company finally meeting me half-way with the promotion/raise for all the additional responsibilities of Team Lead (which turns out to be a lot more like a real manager than I realized when I agreed to take it!).  So, despite A LOT of difficulties (and my copious complaints that you got to hear at our Girls-Night-Out), at the outset, I'm really enjoying it now.  I work with great people and, as usual, that makes all the difference..."

I worked 55 hours the week I wrote that, I think, coming into the office both Saturday and Sunday because the work goes so much easier with two monitors (which I don't have at home), and that garnered some respect from my micro-managey kind of harsh boss.  He seems to have softened recently whether because of my efforts or that I complained about him or because he is terrified we might all quit and he'll have to do the work himself!  :)  Not really sure, but either way I will take it.

So, all in all - rough year!  Not sorry to see it go...but happy I'm still here, on this planet first & foremost and at my current job.  Here's to 2013 going just a little more smoothly, at least in the area of work.  The rest of life will probably still be as challenging as ever but "no one said it would be easy."  Merry Christmas everyone!

Boy

Just one more song, if you can bear with me....

How important this song once was for me and my friends!  And totally important in the history of song-making...not really, one-hit-wonder for sure, but still has a short entry I found on Wikipedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_%28Book_of_Love_song%29

The lyrics aren't much but oh...the feeling of this song still takes me back to a time when I was (really) young and all was possible!  And one of the biggest best possibilities then, was meeting a Boy that you really liked...who might like you...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x7cDOHHk30

Boy, uh huh, boy, uh huh
Boy, uh huh, boy, uh huh

Boy, uh huh, boy, uh huh
Boy, uh huh, boy, uh huh

Boy, uh huh, boy, uh huh
Boy, uh huh, boy, uh huh

I want to be where the boys are
But I'm not allowed
I wait outside of the boy's bar
I wait for them to all come out

I'm not a boy
I'm not a boy

It is 5 AM and You are Listening...to Me

I love this song at least for this one lyric...just for the weird & wonderful existential implications of it! ~
"we are all/in some way or/another going to/Reseda someday/to die"

Brought to me by my old college (L.A.) friend Oliver, on a mixed tape probably long thrown away, but this song coming back to me now for some reason.  Best not to ask why. :)

Soul Coughing- Screenwriter's Blues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR9WJSX9pnU

Exits to freeways
twisted like knots on
the fingers
jewels cleaving
skin between
breasts.

Your Cadillac breathes
four hundred horses
over blue lines
you are going
to Reseda
to make love
to a model
from Ohio
whose real name
you don't
know

you spin
like the cadillac was
overturning down a
cliff on television
and the radio is on
and the radioman is speaking
and the radioman says
women were a curse
so men built Paramount
studios
and men built Columbia
studios
and men built
Los Angeles

it is 5 am
and you are listening
to Los Angeles

And the radioman says
it is a beautiful night out there!
And the radioman says
Rock and Roll lives!
And the radioman says
it is a beautiful night out there
in Los Angeles
you live
in Los Angeles
and you are going to
Reseda; we are all
in some way or
another going to
Reseda someday
to die
and the radioman
laughs because
the radioman fucks
a model too

Gone savage
for teenagers with
automatic weapons and
boundless love
gone savage for
teenagers who are
aesthetically pleasing
in other words
fly
Los Angeles beckons
the teenagers
to come to her
on buses;
Los Angeles loves
love

it is 5 am
and you are listening
to Los Angeles

I am going to
Los Angeles
to build a screenplay about
lovers who
murder each
other
I am going to
Los Angeles
to see my own
name on a
screen, five feet
long and luminous
as the radioman says
it is 5 am
and the sun has charred
the other side of
the world and come
back to us
and painted the smoke
over our heads
an imperial violet
it is 5 am
and you are listening
to Los Angeles.

You are listening.
You are listening.
You are listening.
You are listening.

Remember when you were young...

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (I-V)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SqFPNTBnv8

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom,
blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,
rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!