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The Lilac PenguinThe Dyslexic Reflections of a Commonplace Life (If I could just spell...)
1月23日 Field Trip!!!!Today was a day of travel. I have this very old community important structure that is being revitalized and turned in to a local government type office. Going on field trips is a win and lose type of day. It’s great because I am out of the office and my cell phone is on silent while I am walking the site. I am out of pocket so no one can call and bug me. It’s a bad thing because I now have 14 messages on my voicemail, and about 5 annoying emails… 1月22日 Humm along -"Rainy days and Mondays always get me down..."In last weeks Newsweek, Anna Quindlen stated “writing is: not just a legacy, but therapy”. So let the dull details of my day spew forth. As Tim D told me in a comment a long time ago, go ahead and complain.
Today is a very annoying day in my corner of the office. I am literally in the corn of an open air office with the dividers at 40” high. I can look down over my 7 co-workers and see out the window overlooking the indusial area of the river ( I am about 100 feet high). I can look in front of me through the glass walls of the spec writer's office and see out another window overlooking the city, and if I turn in my chair, I can look out my two windows to see over the historic waterfront, river, the spa, and a golf course. The wall next to me is blank and white.
I reseached at least five things last week for my boss, who did not like the answers I gave him. So I am how re-researching the topices, hoping to find that magical way around the problem. This is on top of the 7 full project reviews I need done by Friday. Plus, we switched building codes at the first of the year, so I am basically starting from scratch to make sure nothing has changed from the last set of rules.
What makes this even more joyful is the women in my office are expecting in the next 3 to 6 months. It is baby talk all day. I am the only female not in my office excepting a child. This really adds to my anxiety over whether or not I should have children….
I am very tense, and already tired - and it is only 1:23 on a Monday. Four more days to go…. Where are my headphones? I think I need to listen to some Cure or Smithereens… or maybe Motzart… 1月21日 I need to carry tissues with me more often...I was able to high jack a computer at the college library this afternoon. Being an alumnus does have some advantages it seems.
The reason for my visit was to track down some info from my online bank for my taxes. Yet the first thing I did was hit my msn web page. This is something I can not do from the office. I have RSS feeds to some of my favorite spaces there. I go to the first one, Mumo. The most up to date entry is from January 18th, and it is tell us Karen passed away.
So here I am in the middle of this very upscale private college state of the art computer lab(it’s an art college so Mumo will approve) surrounded by people who where born while I was still in high school or a college freshman, and I start tearing up and sniffing. People are still looking at me.
Mumo was one of the reasons I started my blog. She created my opening art tag. It’s not like this came as a shock or even a surprise. We all knew she was not well. But she was such a comfort to read. She faced her issues head on and she didn’t really ask much from us her readers. I feel a little guilty when I think of all she went through and how I with my pitiful little problems seem to be so self adsorbed in my issues, I seem to have let the chance to stop by her site to visit more slip through my fingers. How powerful the medium of blogs that the lost of someone who I knew I would never meet affects me as much as the loss of some of the people I see regularly. (Ok - the students are being to point now, must find tissue…) 1月19日 From the Great computer beyondHello my poor suffering readers (all three of you)…, yes it has been a long time. Let’s start with my current state of trouble, since it relates to you… My computer has been very ill lately. The MSN upgrade some how uninstalled my dial up, and then it kind killed the modem. So I have been off line and out of pocket since before Christmas. I still do not have a working computer in my world. I also have no ability to look at my space from work. But I can now get into my email accounts, so I can email an entry. I have no clue if my space is even still up… My other problems of the world are my normal sort of complaints and problems, similar to any of my past problems and complaints. I am working on some new stuff though, and I am going to be a guest at a blog convention. (My friend is working there so slipped me a free pass). Maybe I will get back to my normal self. We knows… 12月4日 I'm back and it's less then a month!!!!I'm checking in to let every one know I am still around.
November was a very trying month. The low point was the 28th when I lost my companion of 16 years, the smartest cat in the whole eastern sea coast... if not the world... she will be missed. She talked and sat next to me as a typed. She even added to the editting some times... but now my house is very silent. My other two are not meowers, so I can go hours with out any noise beyond the television.
I quess I will adjust...
On a happy thought, I finished all the major projects and deadlines. I came out the better I think. We will find out when I have my review... 11月11日 yah, I am still... well i'm somewhere...Every now and then I would be driving down the road, or sitting at my desk, and it would happen. Some times it was while I was running out to get my lunch, other times to was when I was in that state between exhausted awareness and when the black of sleep took over.
It was here. My igloo. This thought right now would be a great item for my blog… and then I would be off to my next task - the thought faded.
A year ago I started this space to help me be less of a workaholic. Although I have not failed in this attempt, I have not been doing so great either.
I would love to tell you every thing, but I don’t want to frankly. Complaining would not beneficial, and may add to my annoyance with life in general…
But know I miss being here, I miss reading my four faithful blogs, and I still think about all of you… I’ll try to do better then an entry ever two months or so… 9月7日 No rest for the meeting members...
I know. I have been a BAD penguin… I have not written a think in over two weeks…( Sticking Bill under wing) I have the basic excesses that I will spare you all from hearing… I just got back from a state committee meeting on the other end of the state. I wanted to get my boss to fly me up in the company plane, but that was not possible… and I am blaming the Guy in the big white house. I would be landing in the capital around the time the leader of the free world would be hogging the sky. Little planes can not fly into his big plane’s airspace. When I left the meeting, I would have had to land back in my world where - guess what? The airspace would be taken up by the guy again. ( I love election years …) SO… I had to get up at 3:30 A. M. (this is not a typo), leave my house at 4:30 (still A.M. – Hey? Is it suppose to be dark as night at 4:30? This is morning right?), to drive for 5 hours (since I hit rush hour traffic in the worst city to drive to work in the whole continent of North America) to be at a 10:00 morning meeting, which lasted 3 ½ hours. I then had a late lunch, visited a few government types, then drove home 4 ½ hours (since I was leaving in between the 3 and 5 rush hours…), arriving back at my house at 7:30 (Not A.M.).
Now, I am going to bed.
I have a meeting at 8:00 tomorrow... A.M. of course... 8月21日 Make plans and some one Laughs....I was in the middle of telling all four of my faithful readers about my search for my inner gemutlichkeit when last I was working on an actual entry. Then the spell check went crazy (just to recap). I am working at getting back to this subject. I created a master to-do list for the goal of Chicago. I need to get a few things done and others “in-order”. The funny thing is the majority of the issues are items that have been on my personal need to do list for awhile. I have been avoiding them for various reasons but if I want to end up in Chicago, I really need to starting doing the stuff on my mental list.
The first one is to get my license. I have able to take the tests to be a licensed archiholic for well over 5 years. I just haven’t. My reasons are many, and the excuses for not just sitting down and taking the damn things even more vast. The main two are time and incentive. I would have to carve out time to study (which I know I could do if I really wanted to find some spare time). Also, I am in a position in my current job where having a license would not matter. I am under a blanket style. I do not sign documents, I do not hold the liability, and I can not be held independently at fault if the firm is sued. I get paid as if I have a license. My firm is set up were I am in a position where no one below me is licensed either. This system works very well were I am. That being said, if I want to maintain my current pay and level in a firm in Chicago I will have to hold a license. I could not afford to live there making less then I do now, and my profession is not one that will allow me to have a second job where I am expected to be somewhere at some time some one has yet to decide. So now I am studying for my 9 tests.
The next is the every day neglect of my condo. There are some every day repairs that I need done. These repairs don’t really bug me on a day to day existence. I don’t have to have the hardware to my bathroom door fixed to live in my world. Only I use the door, and it stays open to my bedroom. I close my bedroom door if I have guests. I don’t care that the cats scratched the trim to the guest bedroom closet doors. No one uses them. I have some light fixtures that could be switched, and my storage room needs new shelves. I have been holding off replacing the HVAC, and the place needs a really good pre- selling cleaning. Most I can do myself, but some things will need some professional help. So I have to do a major clutter cleaning, repairs, and minor updating to sell the place at it best price for the dollars invested. Example, I have enough friends in the HVAC industry to have a new system installed for a very good price. The return will more then pay for itself in this market.
My other issue is savings. I need a better safety net to afford a move. I figure moving will cost me around $4000 of out of pocket expends not covered by any relocation benefits. Being your typical Generation Xer, I have a 3 digit number for savings that I can touch (not counting the retirement plan and the secret stash of shoe buying funds) Although my profit from the condo sale could cover this, it would lower the options of where I could find a place to live. I am not shooting for an upgrade in lifestyle, but if I want to live in a fairly safe section of the city I can afford, and be i a reasonable distance from the job, I need to have the house funds stay the house funds. I will be using my current savings for upgrades to the condo and to pay for the nine tests (About $1250 if I pass then all on the first try). So I am doing some drawings for a Christmas shop at a local gallery, and I have some pieces people have offered to buy in the past I may have printed in limited runs.
Yet as I organized all of this, the plot thickened.
My idea at the time was to form a basic order of things to be in a better situation to move to Chicago in the next 6 to 18 months. This order has not really changed. I still need to get fully licensed, I still have to work on my condo, I need to establish some savings. The weird thing about life is that when you start making personal choices to change because of the stagnation of your current situation, things start to alter in the place you are.
In the last month, I have been asked to be on a few major boards here in town, a state position for a professional organization, and a some other requests that all lead to securing the roots a little firmer then they were. In some cases, I can refuse to be on some of these institutions. Others are career suicide to refuse. I have one that is being offered by a Bishop. A Roman Catholic Bishop wants me on one of his committees. Besides scaring me to death over the responsibility of the whole thing, I just can’t say no to a bishop. It would be like telling my parents to go away. One is from my boss’ father’s oldest friend (Sorry Mr. so and so, but I can’t help you or my bosses dad right now, but maybe next time.), Nor can I turndown the state appointment, since I am the person who came up with the idea that lead to the opening of the appointment (not realizing they would give it to me…) A client asked me to be on a board of one of his pet projects. (Let’s try saying no to one of your firm’s largest and oldest clients - a client who is directly tied to how big your Christmas bonus could be this year.) Let me first say I am very lucky to be asked to be a part of all of these activities. In many cases I earned the privilege of serving. The timing though might have been better.
Or maybe the timing was just right.
I had to sit down and do some really heavy thinking about this. Professionally, this adds to my experience level and better increases my knowledge base, my value to my firm, and works well on the resume. It also establishes me in the next wrung up the profession ladder of the wonderful and strange world of architorture. I am in a profession that is based on the concept of service to the people who will one day enter into a building I help create. I am charged with protecting their safety and to add value to the space they enter (ok that sounded a little too noble even for me). I have made a name for myself in the world I currently call home. If I leave for Chicago, I start over. I have to reinvent who I am both personally and professionally. This did not seem so difficult when I believed myself to be a nobody. Yet as I think about the level of contacts and the reputation I have developed here, the scarier the thought of recreating them becomes.
So now I am re-looking at the picture of Chicago, and what is it that makes me happy about the outlook of being there. What is it I want that I can not have here? Do I have to be in Chicago right now, or is this a long term goal?
So the journey continues… 8月17日 I did it any way.....Tonight I inflicted wounds upon myself. I watched Television.
Since the day it first aired 18 months ago, I have watched every episode of Greys Anatomy. It is one of the few television shows I can not help but watch. Tonight they replayed the bomb in chest show from January. I tend not to watch repeats of shows I really like until much later in their runs. Tonight though, I could not help myself from watching the last 10 minutes. I know what happened the last time, but I watched it any way. I knew what my reaction would be, but like a sick mindless moth I went into the gloom of the screen.
For those of you not up on Greys, the main characters are in love with each other but they can not be together because… well, the guy said so. Ok - he is doing it out of this warped sense of loyalty and for what once was… but still. The girl falls to pieces and makes some bad choices putting her life back together even though she still adores him. She begged. She sold a few parts of her soul for him. But he did not pick her. Now she has to carry on… ( of course I can empathize with her… although my life is nothing like hers, and I lost the guy because he was … well… him: plus I can’t really tell you or it would send the four, or it down to three… whatever - my faithful followers of E.M. in to a panic of spoiling the tale… but I digress…). I keep hoping for a happy ending so at least someone gets one.
The last scene does me in… she can’t remember their last kiss, but he can recall every thing… He needs to know she is ok, and she can’t tell him how she feels… and at that moment I wished I was one of them. I wish I had some one who had to know I was ok (out side of my family and friends), and I want so badly to have the thing that they have, knowing it’s not even a real thing - just a ‘dreamed up should be real but it is not’ thing… I don’t care if it never works out. I already live that story personally… I just want to know that somewhere the other person feels as I do and hurts as much as I do…
When the show first aired I cried myself to sleep that night, mourning something that can never be and really never was… Tonight I have this hold on my heart squeezing my chest because this time I knew what was coming… I could have stopped it, but I didn’t switch the channel. I caused my own pain, and this time the pain is worse because I have only myself to blame. I am mad at me for doing that to my soul… we deserve better…
I am going to bed and wait for tomorrow… (the theme of Gone with the Wind fades as a Scarlet echo resonates in the background...) yah tomorrow is another - tomorrow… 8月9日 It works...Well my Word 2000 is Healthy again….
Microsoft, being oh so helpful, suggested I update my suite of products; with out saying that exactly… I did what all people should do when they have a problem. They read the manual. So after a few minutes of index hopping and finding an obscure file that does not have a name that could describe it remotely as a dictionary, I was able to restore the link and then update it from the web page… 20 minutes later I have spell check. NO Spelling Allowed!!!!!I have completely corrupted the dictionary!!!! HA HA HA So the spelling police will have to arrest me for the next few days... 8月8日 Working on it. (in more ways then one)As I continue my search for my own personal gemütlichkeit, I have formed an outline of what I need to resolve and arrange in my world. (ok… I had to look the correct spelling of that word up in a germen dictinary online… one of my childhood parish priests used it in homilies often and it was a real bear to trace down the damn thing - although oddly I spell better in deutch then english - so please reward the effort of looking the word up if you don’t know germen… I would give you the English meaning but it is a word that does not translant well… although it is real fun to use in casual conversation here in the wasp like south… the reactions are priceless) Since Tim asked; I am forming the ground work to be ready when aprutunity cames a calling… why is aprutunity not correcting itself? Where are the red squiggly lines under the majority of this entry? This is weird. What the _ habbened to my spell check… I lost my dictionary…
WE INTEREPT THIS EMAIL DO TO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES…
Ok after 10 minutes of trying to find the pumb thing I will have to hold off on finishing this thought until I figure out if it is just hiding or corupt.. then I will have to hunt down the disc to reload it… maybe the german took it for a loop or something…. great I am all ready to orginize my thoughts on getting my stuff together and I lose the sbell check… figures. Dyslexics can not function in the real world with out having the magic spelling elves come along pehind you and fix your silly inner workings of your twisted thought process..
Stay tune. 8月4日 It's almost over!!!The busy season is winding down…
July for me is December to a department store. EVERY one of our clients wants their building for the upcoming school year. And it is always down to the deadline for them all.
But on the 13th day she will rest…
I have put out an email to all of my bosses and most of my friends that if any off then so much as wakes me up tomorrow (even if it is 4:30 in the afternoon) will have a very bad day when I have finished with them…
Time for Random thoughts.
By the way Mike... If you give me your email i will add you to my list of people I send a daliy email too to prove I am alive...
7月23日 I am just the person who knows how to open the bag of food...This weekend was all about the cats.
I did not plan a feline-alooza, it just kind of happened. It started Friday night when I went to the store. I got myself a piece of salmon for dinner, then I got cat litter, cat food, cat treats, a cat toy (it was on sale) and carpet freshener (also for the 'cats'…)
I had a vet appointment for them all on Saturday. So we did pre vet stuff Friday night. It takes a lot of strength to hold down an 11 pound cat while you brush out there fur. Then do that three times… After eating my dinner I had to put two cat carriers together. The oldest cat is claustrophobic and is very happy to sit on my lap watching out the window for the 1.5 mile trip to the vet. I just need a leach for her and she will follow me into the vets while I am carrying the other two (did I mention that cat is a kitty Einstein?).
Saturday was spent sending the herd to the doctor for shots and check ups. The oldest is hyperthyroid and is slowly getting worse, but she is still happy and is not in pain yet, so I am keeping her around for a little longer. The other two are a little over weight, but fine. By the time I get them home they have trashed my car with kitty hair, and I need a bath. Car first; heated cat hair is not a pretty smell. After changing my cloths, I head to the car washing place and a hour later my car’s back seat is hairless. I then set to work changing the litter and taking it over to the trash. I vacuum and clean around the cat beds. Then I wash out all their dishes. It is now late afternoon and I final take my shower to de-cat and put on my third set of cloths for the day. The darlings are still not talking to me because of the shots as I go out and have dinner with some friends. When I get in, the oldest cat is chewing me out for leaving her when she is not a happy cat.
Sunday is all cats all day. The have forgiven me for putting them in the car and taking them to the vet, but since they do not feel good yet, they all want to hang out – on me. It is 93 out today, and I spent my afternoon with the oldest cat plaster between me and my car arm, the middle feline on my legs, and the youngest on my lap, all wanting to be scratched – problem - 3 cats, only two hands. Thank good for air-conditioning
So now I am typing and I have my critic sitting on her chair next to me meowing at me while I type. I have one sleeping on the floor next to the desk and the other is weaving endlessly between my feet. I may not have a mate yet but at least some one (or thing) loves me, so long as I keep them in kibble. 7月18日 Still thinking...
I feel that when a person takes a leap or a chance, if they ‘feel it’ you know you can jump in the air and come down ok even if you don’t know what cliff is on the route. I also know from experience that to take that leap when it pops into view, you need to have your other rooms in your house ready to be packed to make the move. I need to order my ducks so when I finally stop talking in bad cliché’s I can call the movers and the realtor and be off. Right now I don’t even have the metaphorical boxes or even know what I need to pack and what can be left behind. Opportunity comes along to those who are ready to invite it in the door.
The added problem is that as much as my job drives me nuts, it is a craziness of my own making. I love what I do, I respect all three of my boss, and even though I am suffering from a bad case of burn out, I know I am wanted and respected in return. If I could move my office to North Lakeshore Drive Chicago, it would be perfect…
I have lived my life in a state of when and then. When I finish collage… then… When I get a job in my field… then… When I get my Masters… then… When I get my own place… then… When I move to so and so… then…. This is not a wrong state or even an unrealistic state. I did all the whens and I moved on to the thens… But I also waited for the mate and the kids…
Let’s be really real. I am 37. My window of family is now less then 3 years per my many doctors. Although my odds have improved in the last decade (if NEWSWEEK is to be trusted) I have reached the point of favorite Aunt and bluestocking. Prince charming got lost and I was too self involved to send out the search party. I will have a mate one day, but with every day that ends the odds of my own family get smaller.
My life is in a pattern that when the mate and kids came I could adjust the boxes of my life into the building blocks of ‘our’ future. If I am to change my life now I need to reorganize the deck chairs on my ship so I can take in the full view of the iceberg and steer the igloo clear… or at least know to head to the life boat. |
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