resolutions

We’re all three weeks into our new lives. How’s it going?

The jury’s still out here.

I actually didn’t make any resolutions. Not really. Well, ok, fine, maybe a few, but nothing life shattering. I read something recently, and while I can’t remember whose quote it was (I think Anaїs Nin), and can’t remember her exact words either, what she essentially said was that every day she wakes up, she plans and critiques her own life. Like Groundhog Day, only it’s New Year’s Day every single day.

That’s so me; every day an assessment of the day before, and a hope that the new day will be better.

Not that I don’t have goals. I have plenty.  This year and from this year forward, I’ve a goal to read a book a month. I’m a total book addict; as of right this minute, I have exactly 214 unread books in this house. Worse, I’m dying to go to the bookstore and buy three or four more that are on my list (Barnes & Noble, I miss you so much).  So, if I read one a month…OK, either I better live a good long time, or learn to read faster. Or resign myself to letting them be merely part of the décor, which they are, of course, rather than here for edification, amusement, enlightenment, or something to kill boredom when the electricity goes out.

I suppose there’s more:

-          Use the good dishes. What the hell am I saving them for?

-          Get email under control.

-          Cook something different, instead of the same old crap. Assuming, after last December’s cooking blitz, that I’ll ever want to cook again.

-          No more muttering out loud while roaming the grocery store aisles. At least not if someone else is in the same row.

-          Develop a tolerance for stupid (nothing like setting myself up for failure).

-          Stop eating every meal at my desk in front of the computer. Though it’s true, I’ve gotten used to ingesting fur.

-          Floss.

-          Be nice to my ex’s. Tough to do, but they can’t help themselves. There’s seemingly no cure for egos run amok or WDS. [Hint to Mr. Uniform – Linked In is not Facebook or a dating site, and certainly not the place to register all those notches in your bedpost (which I assume, in real life, looks like it was attacked by termites).]

Off I go to knock the dust off the treadmill (yep, that’s on the list, too)….let’s see how we all do, a month from now….

pre-spring

It’s been another brutal few months, and I tend to not feel terribly creative when so much energy is sucked out of me by stressful situations.

This was the year I thought would be the turn-around, and for a while, it looked like it was going to work out that way.

True, I did get out of a tormenting business entanglement with crooks and felons, and found myself a much better situation with reliable, honest management. How it happened was total serendipity. That particular five year nightmare is, so it seems, behind me. [I wish the rest of them were.]

True, I did have a position for awhile, one that I’d sought for a long time. I knew it was the right path, just the wrong owner, wrong company. “Ethical issues.” Too bad I have some, and she doesn’t. [Luna-Bitch calls IRS regs on travel and entertainment expenses “gray areas.” I kinda think they’d disagree.] And, from what I’ve heard, everything I predicted would happen at The Circus is coming to pass. Still, I would’ve preferred to say until the door closed. It’s not like I’m not used to working for bankrupt companies or anything, right?

Those two events pointed to a better year, which I swore, a year ago, had to happen. Maybe it was. Right now it doesn’t seem like it; I’m operating in crisis mode again.

Then there are other issues and observations starting to make me wonder what the hell….

…How is it that some people, even though they have never done what you aspire to do, and don’t even know anyone who has, think they can give you advice on how to get there or, rather, why you can’t, or never will, or should stop trying?

…Why does a sudden stroke of financial luck turn some folks into experts on everything? All of a sudden, they’re smarter than you, and you’re an idiot. I know I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but it’s where it’s coming from that has me floored this time.

…Then there are friends that you don’t know how they got to be so important, but are glad as hell they’re in your life right now, making you laugh when everyone else is just criticizing and doubting.

There has to be a time when it stops getting worse, and starts getting better. I’d settle for a homeostatic state at this point.

Oh. Yeah. My damned birthday is particularly irritating this year, and it’s more than just the number that’s bugging me: it’s the situation I find myself in when that number turns that I hate.

So, in the hopes of distracting myself from all of that for just one day….I lined up a full day, but Mother Nature brought a blizzard to the party. Two of the four activities I’d planned have been cancelled, possibly a third. I sit around the house enough, and it may sound relaxing to folks that don’t get to do that very often, but I’ve had all the “peace and quiet” I can stand, I’m over it, and I’ll be damned if I want to do that this birthday.

“Pre-spring?” I know. A friend of mine uses that to trick herself into thinking positive thoughts about the arctic we go through from now ‘til end of high school basketball season. I think I’ll give it a try. Spring, real spring, won’t come any too soon this time.

work

I like to work, always have, and almost hate to admit that. Most everyone I know, if given a winning lottery ticket, would happily abandon their current employer. I’m not sure what I’d do. Depends on the employer, I guess.

I like the challenges of learning new things and then teaching them. I seem to have an affinity for accounting software. I love numbers, balancing, reporting, analyzing, translating it all. I love learning a new-to-me industry’s nuances. Call me a traitor to my gender, but I’d rather talk business than babies.

I did a lot of good at this last one, and in a short period of time.

I found their accounting records in barely contained disarray; now, all but two or three balance sheet accounts have been reconciled.

They never had cash flow statements with their financials, and now they do, or did, anyway, until two days ago.

I taught my bookkeeper and the department heads the importance of the dates on those invoices they were approving (usually months or more late), and explained the impact that one simple thing had on the income statements.

I found the problem with the monthly inventory adjustments, and corrected that.

I found out the reason behind the ongoing payable and receivable reporting issues, and corrected that.
I chased down inter-company balancing errors that dated back 10 years, and fixed those.
The company, at me and my bookkeeper’s urging, finally switched to a payment gateway service that’s the best there is out there. They’d been trying to make that change for years.
I tried to mentor the new GM; she’s in over her head. I’d like to think even a bit of what I tried to teach her sunk in, but I’m afraid the evidence points to the contrary.
I tried to restore my bookkeeper’s confidence in her skills; she’s really good, she’d just been verbally abused by the owner for so long, she was starting to buy into it.
I shortened the month-end close process from over three weeks to six business days.
I never missed a deadline, and I did more than I was asked.
 

Still, it wasn’t enough.

What I learned:

*I know more than I thought I did. To some extent, although this is another beating, my self-confidence has been restored. It’s tough to maintain that when you have even some of your closest friends starting to doubt you.
*A manager, in over her head, will boldface lie to you without so much as a twitch in order to save her own ass skin. When you hear her say “it needed to be done,” you know she’s just compromised another principle; that is, if she had any to begin with.

*An owner who says she doesn’t want to be surrounded by “yes men” really does.

*When one of the interview team tells you the owner “really cares” about her employees, you should question why she even thought she had to bring that up.

*If told the employee turnover rate is low, you should find a way to check. [In this instance, the owner has fired over 50% of the employees since January; she hires more, and then fires them a few months later.]

*Never trust anyone wearing knee-high turquoise lizard skin boots and junk jewelry the size of gumballs, or anyone with a standing Botox appointment.

What a disappointment, to have searched so long, only to find I’d accidentally joined the The Circus. Luna-Bitch and her Gigolo will soon find themselves in the same position they put everyone else – out on the streets. What they won’t understand is why no one will care.

random thoughts from a dark room

About all you can do in a flat out position is let your mind wander. She dims the lights, more so she can see the screen than for my comfort, I think.

I hope for a nap. No coffee no water 7am is unreasonable punishment.

I’m not used to being treated like a customer rather than a nuisance. I got a phone call yesterday, asking me which way I wanted something done, rather than someone just making a decision that I was going to pay for.

The goo starts out warm, but quickly turns cold.

Will I ever fly again? Do I care if I do or don’t? Used to be, one of them would call and let me hitch a ride to anywhere they were going.  C501 to PA32 to C172, didn’t matter to me. Miss that.

I ask a few questions about how the machine works, but I’m too tired to keep the conversation going for long.

Egg rolls. As soon as I get out of here, I need to find egg rolls. I’m starving and thirsty. No-fat dinner, she said. I probably overdid that.

Why am I here?

Bad guys should be made to wear rat masks so they can be identified immediately, rather than years later, too late.

I’m close to dozing off, when she interrupts….deep breath….hold it…..breathe.

Bacon.

Or pizza.
One shouldn’t crave things like that at 7am.

….beep…beep…beep….the shutter of her “camera” sounds like a Geiger counter, or a bomb detector. I guess, in a way, that’s what it is.

Is “grown man” an oxymoron? One in particular, once filled up with liquid courage, becomes pettier than a room full of 14 year old schoolgirls. Does he regret what he does at midnight, when he wakes up the next morning? Or does he even remember?

“You’re almost done.”

I need to go somewhere. Again, I wish I could fly away, with a pilot to take me, get out of this hellish weather that has no end, even just for a day. Michigan. As far north as you can get. One day. Too much to ask, I suppose.

“Roll to the side now, honey.”

If they spent half as much time tending to their own business as they do tending mine, their business wouldn’t be failing.

I know she sees it, but she can’t say. The report will be written in 24 hours, then delivered to the referring physician.

***
Turns out, it took 15 days. Complete nonsense.  Even then, it was only an assistant who delivered the results.
Yes, they found something, but it was not what I expected.
She seems completely unconcerned with the findings.
Really???
I’m not a pain wimp. I’ve broken an arm, shattered a wrist, but this pain was a 12 on the one to 10 scale, and the first in ever my life to cause me to consider dialing 911 or driving myself to the ER.

New doc, second opinion?

crazy, stupid...

...hot.
[I know. I've been busy. More about that later.]
Who ordered this nonsense?
We didn't have winter. No one complained about that so much, but some of us did wonder if the snow deficit was a sign of things to come.
We missed spring, too. 85°F and mowing in mid-March? What happened to snow during high school basketball playoff season?
And now? Triple digit temperatures. Daily.
Sometime during the 82 days I've been a boss, Indiana must've had an earthquake and the entire state slid south at least five hardiness zones and clear to the equator.
Our ozone exceeds the "federally mandated standards." I have to laugh. Did the government tell Mother Nature about its standards?

So there's plenty of crazy and stupid. Not just the weather, either.

in the nick of time

Being out of work for an extended period of time erodes your confidence.

Turns out, being at a new job does, too.

I wonder how many ways I can find to make myself feel like an inept idiot? I'm pretty good at it.

I did finally figure out why this new situation is - or was - so disconcerting.

Back when I was a rookie accountant it used to be the norm that you’d work for years on the same clients. You’d typically take them over from someone who’d left your accounting firm or become partner. The good part about that was there would be plenty of files to review and usually the partner in charge to fill you in. So year after year, you’d get to know multiple businesses and their owners. Eventually, one of them would start to grow and, liking you and your work so much, and needing more help, they’d hire you away as their controller. You could step right into that role without any down time at all. If you got any luckier, they’d continue to grow, and you’d end up CFO.

It’s not like that anymore, or at least not in my case. Sarbanes-Oxley may’ve played a role in it, too.

Now if you get hired as an ‘inside’ accountant, you’re going in nearly cold. Sure, numbers are numbers, and you may even know a lot about the business model that’s hired you, but they’re all a bit different, and there’s a huge learning curve that would’ve not been there had you been working with them all along.

I am lucky this time. The complete nerve rattling that I expected to last several months only lasted a week and a half.

Yes.

I probably forgot to say….three years, five months, 16 days, 549 applications, 27 interviews. Someone finally said yes.

ata, four years later

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of the demise of my absolute favorite company/job ever. Judging from the flurry of activity on the social networks yesterday, it seems to have hit us all especially hard this year, and none of us knows why. Does it take that long to fully morn a death and face reality?

Being in the finance department, I saw and knew more of the truth of what was going on rather than having to depend on the rumors that swirled. It wasn’t just MatlinPatterson that came calling. I remember more than one “investor group” sending in their army to do due diligence, I just can’t remember now who they were. I do recall doing my own research on MP and coming to the realization that they would not be an investor who would tolerate bottom line red ink for long. Most of our directors told us little to nothing, or at least that was the case with the director of my area. A few had the decency to warn their departments to pack their desks ahead of time and be prepared for the worst.

Nevertheless, the day it actually happened was a shock to all of us.

There isn’t much to say that hasn’t been said already. One thing, though…to this day, I have yet to hear of any company who inspires the kind of loyalty, longing, sadness, outright emotion that this company did in its employees. I don’t know what the magic was, but if I were a business owner, I’d aspire to that. Working there was maddening, fun, frustrating, tumultuous, exhausting, exciting, and made you half crazy. I don’t know how you’d go about creating an environment like that. Was it the people or the industry, both, or something else?

I think I can say that we’re all still looking for it. Someplace we can call home, someplace we want to stay.

I need, I want

The list is frigging endless. Spring is here, I’ve awakened (at least for now), and deficiencies abound. I’m overwhelmed.

I need a committee of handymen to walk about my house, garage, and yard and just look it over. Oh, she needs that doorknob tightened, oh she needs those bricks lifted and sand backfilled where the chipmunks ruined her walkway, oh look, she needs the oil removed from her garage floor. There are a million things like that, so prevalent and pervasive I nearly don’t see them anymore. These are the kinds of things men see and just know how to fix. It’s in their genetic code. No insult intended to the women I know who have this skill.

I want to go to the grocery and buy absolutely anything and everything I both need and want. Stockpile, even.

I need an army of gardeners for a day. The front yard looks like a cyclone passed through, and I’m starting to get rumblings of complaints. The neighbors aren’t happy. It’ll look great in a month when the thousands of cream-colored daffodils I planted over the years all bloom, but right now the house looks abandoned. The broken window boxes drooping off the second story windows don’t help, either. I need someone who knows how to repair those, too. I’ll even fill ‘em this year. I used to do that all the time, and I miss it; they look so cute.

I want to go shopping. It’s been years. I’d been promised a shopping trip for my birthday last December, but that didn’t happen.

I need a few guys with chainsaws to cut and stack the trees that have already fallen, and maybe cut down one or two more. Several are tilting worse than I do on Tequila Friday Night.

I want new towels. Mine are in tatters and good for maybe washing the dog, if that. They’re 18 years old, if that tells you anything. Maybe new towels should fall under need instead of want.

I need someone to help me fix and possibly expand my compost bin. I’ve gotten much more serious about the process lately; it’s a better use of leaves, coffee grounds, and eggshells than tossing them into the landfills. With the push to “go green,” I’m surprised more of my neighbors aren’t into it.

I want to eat something for dinner besides rice and beans. Nothing wrong with those, but enough already. You know it’s a problem when, rather than fantasizing about cabana boys and beaches and umbrella drinks, you fantasize about shrimp, asparagus, fish, goat cheese, pine nuts, and any other fresh vegetable or exotic foodstuff.

I need someone who knows how to rewire a floor lamp. Drop something on the base, and the bulb explodes. I’m going blind back here, working in the dark. Which is better – fire hazard or bi-focals?

I want to get the car’s air conditioner fixed. It freaks people out when I tell them I’ve gotten used to driving it in 90°F weather and find myself ok with that.

I need to get the car’s leaking head gasket fixed so it’ll stop dripping oil in the garage and I won’t have to worry about the engine anymore. I’ve got a guy monitoring the situation and he says he’s seen this make and model run forever with that problem and have no issues. Even so, in the middle of a road trip, you keep an uneasy eye out for the oil light.

I want wine and an assortment of alcoholic beverages in the house. Considering my lifestyle of the past six years, maybe that, too, should be classified as a need.

I need a boyfriend. Notice I didn’t say want one. Being scarred for life by the last relationship, if a guy so much as looked my way twice, I’d probably bolt like Bambi, over the hill and through the woods, never to be seen again until I was sure he was gone from my doorstep. But need one? I suppose. Someone to make sure I’m still alive at the end of the day and haven’t done something like left a candle burning or the stove on or the garage door open overnight. Not that I’ve ever done any of those things, of course.

This is just the short list.

I want/need all of this to happen soon.

missing

I know.

I’ve gone missing. I didn’t mean it to happen.

Here’s the thing. I’ve been both single and alone for six Thanksgivings, seven Christmases, and seven birthdays. All occasions you’d really like to have friendly people around you, yes? [Note, I said friendly people. Not evil, energy-draining, soul-sucking narcissists or self-centered prima donnas whose only purpose in life is to make you as miserable as they are.] That’s 20 days. Spread those events out over time, take them one by one, they’re mentally manageable. Compressed into five or six weeks, they form the perfect trifecta of Holiday Hell. [Yes, I’m a December child.]

Hearing anyone complain about how busy (s)he was with shopping and relatives and dinners and parties and OMG-please-don’t-make-me-have-another-birthday made me want to shake (s)he senseless. I would love to have those problems to complain about. You can bet, having benefit of the opposite perspective, once I do, I won’t. Bitch, that is.

Of all those single special days, I’ve only spent maybe four of them with other human life forms. The first few years, I didn’t mind so much. It was a post-divorce adjustment period. I mind now. It’s been too long, and my other interminable “situation” doesn’t help matters or my mood. Add all this stress together and I have little energy left for creativity. Besides writing, I wanted to do a painting last month, but every shred of my being is focused on making sure I can still breathe. Every day, I wake up, check to see if I’m still alive, and start dog paddling again.  So many days I feel like I’m drowning.

Exacerbating the stress are the several folks who still have their hands in my pockets (“Surely she must have something left we can take.”). I feel like they’re put stones in my pockets, hastening my sink rate. Even in the season of dreams and magic, they have no conscience.

After this last Thanksgiving, I said No More, and Christmas went much better. I hope the New Year will be even more so. Something has to change. I have had enough, already.

running

I started running June 20, 1977.

Anyone who knows me well is probably wondering why I haven’t written about this by now.  It’s been such an integral part of my entire adult life that I suppose I take it for granted, and I know I shouldn’t. Whenever I sustain an injury, I remember how important it is to me. I can honestly say it is the only constant I have ever known. If I must be labeled, let me be labeled “runner.”

Back in the Paleolithic era of my childhood, pre-Title Nine, girls were not encouraged to exercise or play sports. We had “gym,” where we participated in a variety of activities, but none of it was taken seriously. We were required to wear bloomers, for Pete’s sake. Horrid red baggy shorts with Velcro at the legs. Good Lord, I hated those classes.

So of course, I thought I hated exercise in general.

If you couple that with all my childhood allergies, it’s something just short of a miracle that this lifelong habit developed. It was certainly against the odds.

My first ex-husband (yep, you read that correctly; there are multiples) thought he married a sorority girl. Oh, he knew I wasn’t, but I looked like his frat brothers’ sorority girl wives, so that was close enough for him. All the Sorority Girl Wives took up running in the mid-‘70’s, when the sport was just starting to come into the public’s consciousness. I can only assume the reason they ran was to avoid that inevitable weight gain that comes with marriage.

Naturally, Kevin wanted to know why I wasn’t running too. I’m pretty sure he asked that question over his standard dinner of fried chicken, French fries, and M & M’.s. [I’m really serious here. I didn’t see lettuce – or any vegetable - in my refrigerator for three long years.]

So that June day, before getting ready for work (not being required to be there until noon), whim and curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to give it a shot. I remember the flat red Adidas “sneakers” I owned at the time (shoes being only for show back then, not function). It’s probably a miracle I even owned a pair of shorts.

Knowing nothing about pacing, or the fact that if you go full out, you will last about three point two seconds, that is precisely what I did and about how long I lasted before I had to stop. Not a roaring success. And there was the minor complication of my being a smoker at the time.

But the next day I went out again. I can tell you honestly, I have no idea why. I got better, and by end of summer I could run through the apartment complex multiple times.

When winter came, I stopped…..but come spring, I started again. That, too, when I think of it, is kind of odd. I don’t know how I ever found the discipline to start all over again.

We joined a new racquetball club the next year. In the center of the building were weight machines with an indoor track around those. Yep, you guessed it….a nice, state of the art, padded and banked track…that was 26 laps to the mile. When the next winter came around, I went there to run instead of quitting. I wouldn’t find out for several more years that running outdoors in winter weather isn’t fatal.

Marriage number one fell apart and I used running for stress relief.

A new race was in town (the first one held in 1977), and I was starting to love running so much I thought I’d give it a try. A half marathon. 13.1 miles. Bill Rodgers even came to compete in 1978.

I kicked up my mileage to five miles a day, but about two months before the race, one of my ankles began to swell. A lot. I went to the sports doctor. That, too, a new concept. This sports doc was the only game in town back then.

He looks at my Nike Waffle Trainers….which I’d had so long, the entire backs of them were worn flat.

[Yes, there they are, in the photo below. One of my most cherished possessions.]

He asked where I was running and how far. When I told him about the indoor track, he had only a few words to say. “Get new shoes. Run outdoors.”

Now, you have to know, my parents, specifically my mother, had instilled in me a complete terror of asthma attacks and I thought surely running that far outdoors would do me in. Never mind that I planned to do exactly that two months later. Talk about convoluted logic. I remember that first outdoor run. I went slower than usual and paid attention. Nothing. No wheezing. No shortness of breath. I felt like a bird set free.

Ultimately, I ran the 500 Festival Mini-Marathon in 1980, 1981, and 1982…..

...and then again in 2005 and 2006. Remarkably, my recent times are comparable or better to those first races twenty-some years ago.

Running has taken me through two divorces, multiple moves, career changes, night school, deaths, and personal catastrophes. Running caused me to stop smoking for good and become something of a health nut. Running has surely kept me sane. Running helps me work out solutions to problems and feeds my creativity. There is nothing like air unsullied by exhaust fumes, birds waking, and a glimmer of sun over the eastern horizon to start a day. There is no better time to talk to God.

I had someone accuse me that I run "to impress men.” I laughed so hard at that idiotic comment that I nearly sprained something. Seriously. I run at 5:30am. Even if the streets were lined with men at that hour, all they’d see is a middle-aged woman in mismatched clothing, white legs turning pink from the cold, hair soaked with the effort, and exercise-induced snot running down her face. Yep. What guy wouldn’t be attracted to that?

My morning run seems to be failing me now, and I don’t understand why. This current type of stress has been different and even getting out the door to run has been a challenge. Maybe it’s just that this stress has gone on entirely too long and the mental wear and tear are more than a daily run can repair. I don't know what to do about it except keep trying.

So, next time you see me, don’t ask, “Are you still running?” Ask me, “Did you run today?”

whither thou goest

I went for a run Saturday morning. Nothing unusual about that, except that I got a “late” start. Late for me is anything past 6:30am. I wasn’t into it half a mile, when Karma took a turn, and I came upon these two little guys. Karma knows an animal lover when she sees one.

They were panicked. He-Dog stood at the side of the road while She-Dog paced here and there, ears perked and straining for a familiar voice. Up and down the middle of the street She ran, then up to meet me when she saw me coming. Both little faces look up in that beseeching way little dogs have.

Are you her? Where are we? Will you help us?

A truck had already passed. A mother and daughter stopped; I must’ve looked as distraught as the dogs. The Daughter told me she’d never seen them before. No collars. I’d managed to get closer, and I see that their coats are matted and unkempt.  I think they’ve been dumped. A third car. Nope, they’d never seen these dogs either.

After the fourth car sped by, I didn’t think about it any longer. The dogs trusted me by then. I picked up He-Dog. He was heavier than I expected so, rather than pick up the other, I started walking, and She followed. Led, really. No way was She going to let her mate leave her side. That half mile to home was a long, odd procession.

I fed them, gave them water, enclosed them in my garage in Jasmine’s old crate, and called for someone to take them to the shelter. They huddled together, grooming each other, and shook with fear until I talked to them and told them it would be OK.

You’ll be warm. You’ll be fed. This shelter has a good adoption rate. You won’t have to run the streets anymore. I promise.

When the Officer came, I picked up He-Dog, and She-Dog, of course, followed us out to the waiting van. But what amazed both the Officer and I was when I placed He in the back of the van. She, as short as she is, nearly managed to crawl into the back of the van all by herself.

Not without me, you don’t.

They refused to be separated. Never mind they are hopping into a van with a tall guy in a uniform who they’ve never seen, going to who knows where. It’s all unknown, but they don’t care. They’re together.

I’ve always thought we as humans were meant to travel through life in pairs. The Dogs demonstrated that today.  If you’re lost, hungry, have no idea where you are or what to do next and the future is completely uncertain, you still have each other, and that means everything. Each of you gives the other strength to face whatever happens next, and it’s true...love is all you need.

If two dogs can be that committed to each other, can’t we?

autumn leaves

How can one chance encounter – not even an encounter, really, since at least twenty feet separated the two of us and he didn’t even know I was there at the time – have changed my life so completely?

I realize that’s as trite and idiotic a statement as they come. Maybe. Every single second, lives are changed by marriage, divorce, birth, death…but those are large events. My life changing event was only the crossing of paths. It should’ve been inconsequential.

It was seven years ago today, that chance encounter. I sent the fateful email the next day….and received a reply.

My entire world changed as a result, and I thought it was for the better.

It didn’t work out.

You can take the logical side of the situation and try to see the good that came of it while also admonishing yourself to never, ever waste a thought or feeling on that person again.

So, the good:  I took a job that allowed me to gain some incredible accounting experience I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. I learned to fly. I met hundreds of new people.

The bad: I got divorced (both good and bad). My finances are a shambles.

Am I better off? I don’t know how to answer that. Some days I feel like I only traded one type of stress for another.

Then, turn and take the illogical side, the side ruled by the heart, the side we’re all supposed to ignore, right? I cut myself a break for being vulnerable and actually letting someone in far enough to cause that much pain.

When it ended, I took a year to absorb what I’d learned, letting it sink in that what I thought was true was not and “we” were not an “us.”

I took the next year and a half to forgive him.

Then I took the year and a half after that year and a half to forgive myself. A wise man once said “forgiveness is the gift you give yourself.” It is, to this day, harder for me to forgive myself for being blindly stupid than it is for me to forgive him all his lies.

But still, the internal argument continues….

Brain: “How can you possibly give this person a passing thought after all this time? You are a complete frigging dunce.”

Heart: “So your point is? I’d rather be a fool who lost than someone afraid to take a risk.”

Brain: “Without me, you’ll be nothing but babbling spineless mush.”

Heart: “If you want to operate without me, go ahead, be a cold hearted bitch.”

This argument can and does go on until the wee hours. My head’s so full of noise it’s a wonder I sleep at all.

Once the brain is done telling me that logic should rule, the heart/my artist’s side demands that the swirling foggy colors of those memories take over. I don’t will this to happen, it just does. It just is. There is no right or wrong.

Why is it that two people who theoretically meant something to each other can not sit and have a conversation (a much needed conversation, for me anyway)  that might clear the air and allow each to let go and go on? I tried to arrange it. He said he would do it. We never did.

Yes, Captain, this time every year, when leaves begin to turn, and there’s a slight chill in the air, it’s your time of year, and you are on my mind.

talkin’ ‘bout my guy(s)

It’s been one big struggle for me to write this blog entry. The depth of my gratitude is just not coming though and I’m sounding like an idiot. How do you let guys know what a difference they’ve made? I mean, they’re guys, for Pete’s sake. They don’t communicate. When forced to talk, they grunt their responses, all the while staring at the television. They don’t talk about touchy-feely stuff, right?

Or maybe they do. Some of ‘em.

Completely by accident and all of a sudden (so typical of me lately, to be that oblivious), I look up and something in my life has changed. I have a pack! Call them my homeboys, my guy committee, my band of brothers. It is like having a huge family of nothing but brothers, the brothers I always wished I’d had to help guide me through life. Do this, don’t do that, don’t be scared, you can do it….advice, confidence, someone looking after me.

I know what you’re thinking - how very odd, she’s writing something positive about the male gender for a change. It’s true, there are a few of them who frustrate me more than, say, trying to thread cooked spaghetti through a keyhole.

Several of them are “new,” but more are from the past. The unfortunate bit about that…more of my past has become my present. Damned the past, anyway. Who asked you to show up now? So that rabbit hole beckons me again. At some point, I suppose I’m going to have to go willingly, see what is down there, find out what it is that so haunts me, and make my peace.

Oh hell. This was not on my calendar any time soon. If ever.

All these guys have a way of being amazingly complementary in an oddly matter of fact way… yet forcing me to remember who I was, to consider who I am now, to wonder who I should be, can be, who they think I am…which is the real girl? Instead of hearing “give up, you can’t, you won’t, you’ll never, you’re dreaming,” I’m hearing them say “you can do it, it will be OK, we’ll help you.” Quite the refreshing change, after hearing so much negativity for years on end.

My guys. You’re workin’ magic and you don’t even know it.

small town

Last week, I went back to the town I was raised in, and simultaneously, accidentally took a trip to Nostalgia. It’s not a place I’ve ever been terribly anxious to visit, but there I went, anyway, just like Alice down the rabbit hole. She couldn’t help herself. Neither could I.

I took the State Road east, and for the first half hour, it’s a congested mess. There are some folks – mostly politicians and/or developers/builders - who believe retail is the answer. The only result we got for their ‘vision’ was congestion, vacant buildings, and peaceful open farmland that will be no more.

Once the State Road east/west crosses the State Road north/south, it’s an entirely different story, and a relief. Fields after fields of corn. Native bachelor buttons line the road. A roadside stand piled high with that corn for sale. Even the few stop signs that pop up as you get closer to my Small Town are still there, still the same. It’s Middle American at its best, and I’d choose to live nowhere else.

So I drove that section, eastbound, and thought and thought and got lost in those thoughts, no traffic to wake me from my reverie….

I have flashbacks about the twice a year trips we’d take from my Small Town to the Big City for school clothes and shoes. That same State Road, then the one heading south, to the only shopping mall that existed in the ‘60’s. I can remember riding in the car in silence, watching and tracing the abandoned railroad track that paralleled that road, wondering what happened to that train and the people on it, dreaming of the day I’d be grown up, living in the Big City on my own, working in the department store we were headed to visit.

48 years later, the drive over is comfortingly the same. Nothing has changed. Given the tumult in my life, that’s a welcome sight.

I pass the street my 4^th grade teacher lived on. I pass the big fancy house that the “rich” people lived in. I pass Davis Park and remember summer day camp there and decide to take a chance and drive through my old neighborhood. I haven’t been there in 10 years.

One of the things that surprises me is how narrow the streets feel. The other observation, which, why it didn’t occur to me until just then escapes me, is that all the streets were named after either trees or flowers or plants. Dogwood, Laurel, Redwood, Oakwood, Ivy. Given my immersion in the gardening world, I find that ironic, and wonder if, subliminally, these old streets had any impact on my future life. I’d always given my maternal farmer grandparents the credit for that.

So I turn the corner onto Tulip Street and slow down….it’s only two blocks long, and “my” house is on the end….and “my” house looks fine. Better than fine. The new owners are taking good care of it. I sit at the end of the street for a second or two and breathe a sigh of relief.

The next stop before my appointment with my attorney is the cemetery. I am ashamed to say I forgot where She is. I took a wrong turn, got out of the car, and wandered aimlessly about, plastic flowers in hand, in 95° heat and flip-flops and a black dress, until a caretaker on a mower stopped and asked if I was lost. I guess I’m good at looking lost.

But what happened is one of those conversations you have with complete strangers that changes your day. That also happened to me once in early 2007, too, crossing a downtown street as I was leaving a job I hated. Strangers should not underestimate their impact. This caretaker engaged me in conversation for maybe 10 minutes, and had I not had an appointment, I’m sure I would’ve stayed longer. No matter. He made me feel like a normal, desirable, intelligent human being, and that’s what’s difficult to hang on to when you live as I do right now. I don’t know who he is, but I’d like to thank him for it. Such a simple thing, but the direction of my thoughts, spiraling downward for months, was changed by that conversation. I felt like I’d known him all my life.

So I leave him, and take the right turn, and find Her. Her spot, too, looks familiar and unchanged, or as unchanged and “normal” as 10 years can be with no one to ground you or tell you that you are doing fine, better than most people would be doing in the same situation and not fucking up everything you touch.

From there, to downtown.

I have known this attorney (and I say “this” attorney because I must know at least 10) since the early ‘60’s, since grade school. There are no presumptions or pretenses between us. That, too, is a relief. He is he, and I am I, and once the business is taken care of and lots of papers signed, we retreat to the Country Club for a civilized lunch and off the record discussions of the hell we’ve both been through over the years. Attorney-client privilege is a good thing.

Is it possible you have to go back before you can go forward?

I didn’t need to go back…I’m tiring of all the rabbit holes and confusion and wrong turns….but in this case, I’m glad I went.

customer service

I’ve run into multiple bad examples within a scant 24 hours. I’m shaking my head, wondering how any of these people keep their jobs, let alone run companies.

First up…I applied for a job yesterday….in person. Now I realize that’s waaaay too up close and personal and human for a lot of folks these days. They’d rather run you through their computer and assign you a numeric score. These same people wonder why the employees they ultimately hire aren’t warm and fuzzy and a good ‘cultural’ fit.

It went like this….

“Is M*** in?”
“No.” No explanation, just NO.
“Will you see that he gets this?”
I hand the woman at the desk an envelope with my resume and business card enclosed. She eyes it suspiciously.
“Is this about employment?”
“Yes.”
“We’re not allowed to take paper.”
“HUH?”
“It’s a new rule.” Oh good, a Rules Person.
“Oh Really? I’m a CPA, and I’ve never heard of that rule.”
“It’s new; it all has to be on computer now.”
“Federal or state rule?”
“I don’t know. It’s new.”

She says she’ll give it to him, did I apply on line (yes), and oh by the way, my dropping in would not go well with him either.
I didn’t even get to explain that the purpose of my visit was twofold, that I might possibly want to relocate a certain piece of equipment to their facility. That pathetic excuse for a customer service representative cost them a potential $500+ a month client.

Next up, a new café/restaurant in town. I call to order carry out for tomorrow. The girl-child on the phone is just not sure I can do that.
“Huh?”
Well, they never know what they’re going to have from day to day on the menu, and what they have posted on their website is not always accurate.
“Do you have chicken salad?”
“Yes.”
“OK, do you have the turkey Swiss avocado sandwich?”
“Well yes, but it’s not on the same bread.” Oh Good Lord. As if I care.
“Any sides?”
“Yes we have pasta salad.”’
“Great. Let me order one of each of those for pickup tomorrow.”
“Ohhhhh. OK.”

So tomorrow, meaning today, comes.

I go to same said café.
There’s a man-child working the counter and I’m not sure he’s even going to speak to me at first. It’s not like he’s busy. There are no customers at all.
Yes, he has my order all ready. Well that’s nice. I’m wondering when, if ever, he’s going to get it out of the cooler. He’s way more interested in fussing with the espresso machine.
I ask about the artists’ studio spaces they have for rent there. He has no idea about them. Nothing. Not how many, not what they cost per month. He does get the brilliant idea, finally, to write down the shop owner’s name and email address.

Two hours later, someone from Employment Yokels calls and leaves a message. The reason they don’t take paper job applications is to do with affirmative action, and I should apply on line and attach my resume there.
Again, HUH?
What about the folks who don’t have computer access? How, please tell me, does this procedure, in the name of affirmative action, benefit them?

And of course, grand finale of the day, there’s always the jackass who never returns calls or emails. When did “I’ll call you” not mean exactly that?

I give up. I was raised better than this.
When did common sense, respect, and customer service disappear?

redemption

What do you do when black becomes white, white becomes black, and there’s so much gray you wish that you’d wake up out of this Kansas tornado nightmare/dream to find color again so you could really see? Please Glinda, help me.

It’s been like that here for weeks. The bad guys have become good guys. The good guy has turned bad.

One, who has hurt many people over the course of his lifetime steps up and says he will help, then gets scared, then when the firestorm calms and he is sure he won’t get burned in the process, follows up with his words and promises and helps me do something that I would have no way of doing on my own.

Another, who did a Really Bad Thing a long time ago and paid the price for it, who everyone still wonders about, comes to my rescue with the essentials of life.

The third, who looks to the outside world to be benign and kindly as your local dairy farmer is kicking me as hard as he can, knowing full well I am already down and have been for so many years that there is nowhere else to go but up or die and frankly right now terminal cancer sounds like a great idea. What kind of person kicks someone who’s already down? Does that make him feel like a Big Man?

Then there are two new players who, through their continued kindness and perceptions, managed to get me through the end of the worst of the shitstorm and convinced me that those who were screaming “off with her head” the loudest were really the ones with the problem. Deep down I knew that, but when you hear all the insanely crazy for so long, you almost drink the Kool-Aid and start to doubt yourself.

And God Help you if you tell the politicians the truth. They don’t want to hear it. This is Camelot, you know. Everything Is Perfect.

So you’ve got two that you thought were really bad that maybe aren’t totally, and you’ve got one you thought was good who has turned hateful and vengeful and doesn’t care, by golly he will get even, even though that getting even is the equivalent of kicking a dog and will create him some noticeable bad Karma and probably already has because the news of his spitefulness has spread like wildfire and this is the one instance I’m grateful for the grapevine of gossip.

So it’s all a jumbled up mess, isn’t it? No one is as they seem, no one is as you thought. It’s the bowl of vanilla ice cream you’ve just dumped chocolate syrup on, when you were a kid. First it’s black and white and the delineations are clear, then you start mucking around with your food and pretty soon you’ve got a swirling mess of every shade of gray imaginable and you’re not quite sure what to do with it.

Nothing in life makes sense anymore. Only the sun coming up, the weeds growing, the pets wanting to be fed, the sun sets.

All I know is my life will never be the same again. And all because I didn’t want it to be the same….I wanted it to be better.

that girl

I barely remember her.

She was happy, had a fun job, someone who loved her, and life was just the best adventure ever.

This hell that passes for her life now is not what she signed on for.

statistics update

I need to update my statistics. I may be setting some sort of record, and it’s sure not a record I’m happy about.

I’m pretty sure I’ve surpassed the 300 mark in terms of job applications (that’s since about April 2008). The only reason I say “pretty sure” is that in the beginning I was not tracking them on a spreadsheet, just printing out the application or email, the reason for that being I never dreamt it would take more than a few months to secure work. When that folder full of printed applications and subsequent emailed rejections got too big to fit in the drawer, I stopped printing and started tracking electronically. I can account for 285 there….add another six months’ worth of search, and I think I’ve easily topped 300. One of these days when it’s too miserable to do outside chores (which could be any day now, we’ve had so much rain, and are predicted to have even more), I’m going to go through that file and record those, too. Call me morbidly curious.

Of all of these, I’ve had only 13 interviews to date. I’m not counting the countless treks to every agency in town. Turns out, most recruiting companies just collect resumes and collect your reference names so that they can turn around and call them. It’s bait and switch, near as I can tell.

I tell you, this is exhausting. It has been three years since I’ve had anything that resembles a normal life. I want normal back. I can’t begin to tell you how much I want normal.

I have resumes and business cards all over town. I’ve registered on every corporate job board I can think of and spend a good chunk of each morning sifting through all the computer-generated job leads, applying for those that match my expertise. I have pestered everyone I meet and everyone I know for either a job or a project or a referral. Full time, part time, project at a time….I like working, and always have.

Very few folks I know come close to understanding the strain. If the recession has not impacted their lives or lifestyle, they understand it even less.

If you know me at all, you know I’m motivated, energetic, intellectually curious, grounded, competent, and the polar opposite of lazy. I do not sit and watch TV and eat bon-bons. Hell, the TV in the kitchen has been broken for over a year; best I can do out there is listen to the news while I prepare meals, which is the only time the televisions in the house are turned on anyway (5am, 5pm), unless I have someone here who wants to watch…a rarity in itself.

As a former BF once wrote to me, “you’re not the do nothing kind.” He knows me and my capabilities and tells me I do good work. I just wish he’d help. I think he may have a lot of connections, but has yet to call any of them on my behalf. I wish he would.

As another guy I recently met recently said, “you must be a good money manager.” Yes, I am, but at some point you have to have some to manage. You cannot cost-cut your way to prosperity.

As another male friend said, just the other day, “you’ve got to catch a break sometime, Deb.” Well yes, you would think that eventually it will be my turn on the Good Karma Wheel of Fortune. It’s not like I’m not trying to make my own luck, either. The effort is there, every single day.

I haven’t given up.

april showers

 Please send a dozen of your best goats.

I know....it's bad, isn't it? 

We're all whining and wishing that the rain would stop. I've got my ark kit on order.

Meanwhile....let's look at it this way....

it's.....

not....

snow.

my people

I have a small unhappy following of employees. Not my employees, but my potential employees. They belong to someone else right now. They whisper to me, periodically, are you still going to hire me?

I have told them I will. I have to think of a viable business, something that will make sense and a profit right from the beginning. As soon as I do, I will call them. They will likely have to learn entirely new skills, but that’s OK. I know they can. I know they want to. They already look to me for leadership, the leadership they’re not getting now.

I didn’t acquire these employees purposely. They have come to me over the years for advice, to vent, to ask opinions. They know I will listen, give them an honest answer, and they know anything they confide in me is safe. They know, too, that I will be a fair boss. All I will ask is an honest day’s work, respect for each other, and the willingness to do the right thing to make the company a success. What I won’t do is belittle, berate, or in any other way emotionally abuse them. I will not play one off against the other. I will not lie to them. My company, whatever it may be, will be a place where everyone is happy to be there, and no one need quake in fear when the owner walks by.

I’ve seen that. I see it all the time, and I’m seeing it now. Narcissistic, passive-aggressive owners are hell to work for. They’re sneaky, suspicious, irrational, and afraid of new ideas or anyone smarter than they are. They fear being exposed for the frauds that they are, so they strike out at anyone who would dare question them….even their own clients.

That makes no sense. And it’s no way for employees to live.

I’m trying, people. If you have a good idea about a new business, I’d sure be willing to listen. Let’s talk.