A Hard Place

I've been in a physically fine, emotionally hard place this past week and over the weekend. Working extra hours at my day job to compensate for the fact that my co-worker left, and feeling conflicted about it. As with many things in my life, it has to do with boundaries, and the kinds of obligations I tend to fall into over and over.  The obligations are such that perfect effort equals invisibility, and anything less than perfect effort--which includes perfect effort for too few hours--equals embarrassing results for others that are highly visible and have repercussions--if a guest speaker were to arrive and not have a hotel room booked, or a professor need syllabi for the first day of class and not have any copies.  Not earth-shattering, but the kind of thing where you might think the person responsible was doing a shitty job because it's such a small thing to do...except that there are a lot of small things and each one takes time.

I haven't fucked up anything yet, but if I were trying to do 65 man-hours of work (the amount of myself and my coworker combined) in 25 hours (my official work schedule), it would have happened already.  Instead, I am trying to do the 65 hours of work in 35-40 hours, and feeling resentful about it.

The resentment has to do with the way I didn't make anyone ask, but just took it on.  It has to do with the fact that when the new person starts, she will be paid about 20 cents less per hour than I am paid...after four years. I think they would pay more if they could, but fear that I will find out, as I happened to find out that my last co-worker's salary had surpassed mine after only a year.  Apparently I was hired at too low a rate four years ago, and they have seen the error of their ways and hired subsequent people at a higher rate, but because yearly raises are given as percentage of the rate you already get, that's an error that keeps giving...less, and makes me resent both the people who made the original offer--and makes me resent myself for being so naively trusting early on.

I took a part time job because I wanted to pursue my big writing dreams, but then I agreed to the hours that come closest to simulating a full-time job, and whenever someone is sick, or gone, or needs to go home early, I instinctively spread out to cover the hole...because I'm a team player, and I'm there.  But it happens over and over.  There's always someone else's drama that is more dramatic than my drama so I enable that and then I feel like I haven't really fought for what I want at all, and so maybe I don't deserve it because if I really wanted it enough I would fight harder.

And then I think, if this unrealistic dream thing isn't going to work out, and I'm not really fighting for it, then I should just get a full-time job and makes some money...because, hey, we could hella use some money...  And that makes me sad, because I feel like I didn't try hard enough yet...because of making the very decisions I'm describing right now.

It just goes round and round in a pretty spirally fashion. So that's the hard place I'm in at the moment.  It makes me a less than optimally fun person to hang out with because even when I contain the words coming out of my mouth, my energy is just sad and dark. So I'm trying to find the center and the bottom so I can start charting my way out.

Effort Certification

This is the a computer screen that I use at work.  It's kind of small, but maybe you can see that each of the items on all these lists are links to things you can do.  Some people might use a lot of these links. I generally use about two.


For instance, I noticed the other day that I have never clicked on this link: "Effort Certification."  What is it? Is there a form I can fill out that certifies I have made an effort?


I maybe never know, because it turns out I am not authorized to open it.

Pretty Pictures

Every morning when I come into work and boot up my computer there is a new wallpaper on my desktop.  I have been screen-grabbing them just to show you.

 Who provides these wallpapers?  Dell? Microsoft?   Unknown.

 But my computer is a slow booter-upper, and thus I gaze at them for a few moments every morning while waiting and they always make me kind of happy.

 99 times out of 100 I do not recognize the place.  I wish they had a little option button where you could read an informative paragraph about the subject of the photograph. I think that on most days I would even pay a nickel to read said paragraph.

 Open note to the wallpaper people:  If you ever decide to use that idea--I am available for paragraph writing.

  Pictures.  Pretty...

Anxiety, You Are My Cat

You nudge me awake early in the morning, wanting me to feed you.

My anxiety is a first world problem, born of too much opportunity.

Paul has said that when he pictures me in this mind--his image of me--my avatar I guess you could say, is a little girl, feet planted, arm straight outstretched, holding a knife to fight a dragon--with her eyes squeezed closed.

It is not too inaccurate--because I try very hard to slay my dragons--but I'm seldom a happy or fearless slayer.

This week I woke with anxiety on Monday, because it was the day I had to tell my supervisor that I want to apply for a position in the department that has half the hours I currently work. This is a lot less money for our household, though I would have almost the same benefits. Using the Amazon money I won, Paul and I can last for five months this way--we hope! Then I might have to look for something else. But the idea is that I can have more time to write--and to be more quickly responsive to writing opportunities that come my way. It seems like the right choice to make--I mean, who spends so much money on school and then picks--and keeps for too long-- a "safe" job that can never pay back the loans, and makes it impossible to effectively pursue the career all the money was spent for? That's lame right? Like buying a really expensive ticket to the dance, but balking when it comes to getting the right dress.

So, I did it--arm outstretched, knife pointed...but my stomach was in knots all day.

The knots had sharpened to knives by Wednesday, the day of my pre-Lasik eye exam. It was just a touch up to my left eye, and I was hoping for the best. For months I'd been setting the money aside, and thinking how great it would be to not have to wear my sunglasses over my glasses , and be able to see in yoga class again. But at the same time, I hear my mother asking why I always do these things--can't I just be happy with my glasses? And my boss says, "What it there's an earthquake in the middle of the procedure?" (to which I said, "Believe me, I've thought of that."

And I wonder-- Am I asking for too much? I was really lucky last time, and had a decade of great vision, Now I want more. Am I greedy? I am asking for more than others have, for more than anyone deserves--and will I be punished for that? Is there only a finite amount of luck in the world, and I'm using mine up faster than I should be taking certain risks.

Of course not--who believes any of that? That's like believing in ghosts.

Or furry kitten-balls of anxiety nuzzling your hair right next to your brain...

PS. Lasik went fine. 20/20 out of my left eye. It's awesome!

This Week at the Office, or "Not loving the smell of formaldehyde in the morning"

At work on Monday afternoon, I spent six and a half hours single-handedly doing this:



So that on Tuesday, they could do this:

The new furniture is all match-y and stuff. When it's not still covered in boxes, I'll take a picture.

I think it looks nice, but unfortunately an entire office of new laminate furniture smells like new furniture--i.e. it smells like what is probably formaldehyde with some pine scent thrown in. I have a sensitive respiratory system, and because of my defective repair gene and all, I'm kind of paranoid about ingesting and inhaling toxins. I'm already not a fan of how close our building is to a busy roadway, or the amount of fumes that I'm now exposed to on my daily commute, which consists of standing for many minutes at high-traffic intersections before getting on buses that constantly stop and open their doors at other busy intersections. So adding to my carcinogen load has not been at the top of my list of things to do. Was I just imagining my headache and burning eyes by the end of Wednesday and Thursday or were they real? Were they due to sitting at my new desk, or just a result of sleep-deprivation and PMS?

Because I'm generally a people pleaser, I hate to be the annoying Debbie Downer who points out, everytime someone walks in the door, happily takes a big breath and says "oh, it smells so GOOD in here," that in modern times, GOOD is what POISON smells like.* But I have been making it a point to open all the doors and windows in our office to vent the good smell. Unfortunately, all the doors and windows open onto our beautiful courtyard, which is equipped with no less than eight benches with concrete ashtrays next to them. More than any other place on campus, this courtyard implies that one should sit, gaze at the pretty fountain, and smoke up a storm.

At the time of my cancer diagnosis, I was going to an applied art school in Australia and had just declared printmaking as my emphasis. My work showed potential, and I LOVED doing it. I woke up in the morning excited about going to the studio, even when I wasn't feeling well. It gave meaning to my days. After my surgery, I only went to the studio to clean up my supplies. I still have several unfinished plates that haunt me (all my unfinished creative projects haunt me.) I could use turpentine alternatives and non-toxic inks (that were never quite as good as the real thing), but almost any studio is shared. Potent cleansers are needed to clean the silk screens and resin dust is needed to coat metal plates for etching. I left because I couldn't feel safe there anymore. Because my surgery scar was still fresh and everyone was still shocked and scared by my close call, this didn't seem like a militant move, it seemed like a no brainer.

I decided my new creative outlet / career could be writing (structured differently, this blog post could be called "how I chose to become a writer"). It seemed a good answer for someone living with compromised health. I could do it from home. Writing wouldn't have fumes, like art, and it wouldn't have the high stress and long hours of my former work in event production. Working from home, I would be able to control my diet, make fresh veggie juices three times a day, and exercise.

Cue Alanis Morissette song having to do with irony here, sung by the girl who hasn't juiced in months, worked out in weeks, gone to bed before 1 am in years.

Day to day, I'm not unhappy. My life has structure, part of me thrives on busy jobs, and deadlines, but there was a time I promised that I was going to take care of myself, and I have to admit that I've compromised on that quite a lot. The addition of one more element--like bad air-- kind of throws the whole picture up on the screen, and makes me have to look at it again.



(*Know what smells good to me? The smell of lighter fluid on charcoal briquettes. This, in my childhood, was the smell of a cooked-out hamburger. It was the smell of happiness. I'm sure that's in no way related to colon cancer twenty years down the line, but just as an example of things that smell good that are not good for us.)

Needed: Signage

The campus where I work is connected by areas mainly intended for pedestrians. To encourage this, there are several of these automatic gates, which I think only open for campus service vehicles.

The gates are equipped with signs like this...
I have a hard time envisioning the logistics of this, because the arm only rises when a vehicle comes through. Which means, in order to be hit by the arm, you also must be walking directly into a moving vehicle, which to my mind would be at least an equally large problem.

But apparently the descending arm thing has happened, this gate has been wrapped with foam:
So maybe, I should feel superior because I've never walked into a service truck then gotten hit on the head by an electronic arm.

On the other hand, last week I was running an errand while reading a text, and I almost did this:
Can someone make me a sign for this? I'll afix it to the barrier. Think how many tripping texters we could save.

Happy

I'm sitting at my desk at work, and I'm just thinking about how happy and grateful I am. I'm doing this insanely long expense report, and for days I've been entering £1.50 bus tickets and converting them to US dollars based on the conversion of the specific date, and now I'm entering a large stack of papers into a spreadsheet...

I know, it doesn't sound that happy making, but there's more. The other day I took a screwdriver and removed the drawer under my desk so I could quit banging my knees into it, and sit cross-legged if I want to, which I am doing now.

And I brought headphones to plug into my computer, and I have Pandora playing a bunch of old Sarah McLachlan and Loreena McKennit and similar that I haven't heard forever.

And the sky is still that morning gray we get in L.A. that reminds me of days in Indiana when it might rain (even though it's very unlikely it will rain here).

And it's just so peaceful, and the music is beautiful, and I'm in good health, which is such a luxury-- and when I didn't have good health I swore I would never forget that, but some days I do.

Sometimes I think, what if everything I write never finds a home, and just stays in a (metaphorical) drawer until I die, and then gets thrown away; what will my life have been about? And will people who knew me think of all those hours spent to produce nothing that they or anyone really wanted, and pity me for unfulfilled aspirations and talk about how I was "talented, but..." (which is what happened to my dad.)

But then I have moments like this, when I know with certainty that this life is a gift, and the way to truly receive a gift is to be aware of it, and grateful for it. And maybe it's a result of this job and being isolated from certain aspects of the "industry," or maybe it's something else, like reading more books and so having more periods of transition from the book world in which I become so immersed, and the "real" world, but I've been having (or noticing?) these moments more frequently as of late: Walking down the street to my bus stop when there is warm sun and a cool breeze, accepting an invitation to stay up way too late and watch a Harry Potter double feature on opening day, getting emails from friends telling me about their lives, even if their news is sad--moments that seem full somehow.

And I am grateful, and wanted to write this so I could remember this moment.

Mudd Hall

As promised, the building where I work. Pretty, right?

The library kind of reminds me of Hogwarts.

Interesting story if you are from Tallahassee, and are familiar with Werkmeister Hall--the most Harry Potter-esque room at Florida State University--you might notice a similar aesthetic. This might be because, before coming to FSU, Professor Werkmeister was the chair of the USC Philosophy department for many years.

Grades are in!

Yesterday I read my last twenty student papers, today I submitted the grades with 4 hours and 29 minutes left to spare, according to the time clock ticking away next to the electronic submission roster. I think the semester might now officially be over.

Friends in Mind

So there's something I have been thinking about a lot lately, (including the night I posted last, but I didn't really want to juxtapose it with my ruminations on the death because thankfully these are quite different situations!) are my friends and family who have been battling day to day with various forms of illness. I know how this can change everything, how you have to be stronger and more perserverent just to do the normal things and how sometimes it just takes it out of you, physically and emotionally...Here's my mental shout out to my friend Jeff, (Reiter's syndrome), my sis, Moira (still recovering from a detached retina), brother-in-law Tom, (mystery malady...and those can be the worst!), my dad (recovering from his colon surgery) and my friend Rosie (breast cancer, started chemo last week). I've been thinking of you, praying for you.

The new school term started today...that was fast! I am taking one class this term, Victorian Lit, and it meets Monday and Wednesday nights, so that will start tomorrow. Today I started my summer "teaching" gig, which is fifteen hours a week tutoring in the reading/writing center. I was happy to get this assignment because, although it is more scheduled hours (teaching is only five in class hours a week), there are no papers to grade--woo hoo! Today was scheduling for the students who are taking set hours of tutoring each week (we also take walk-ins). It was a little worrisome as there seem to be more students than slots. Also, the published hours for the center did not change from the normal school year, 9-5 Monday through Friday, but right now we only have enough people to stay open 9-3 Monday through Thursday. Right at 3 o' clock, as Nikki and I were preparing to leave, three people showed up, planning to sign up for slots after 3pm, or on Fridays. Hopefully they will hire on another person and sort it out somehow, or we are going to have a very busy six weeks!

I am looking forward to this weekend, when the local Shambala center is sponsoring a weekend meditation training retreat. Actually it's just Friday night and Saturday, which is probably enough for my attention span, as I have been slack in my meditation practice as of late. I'll let you know how it goes!

P.S. If you are observant, you might notice this post contains my first attempt at a link! Pictures are perhaps only weeks away!