From my horoscope in the SMH today:
"The thing to keep sharply in focus over the coming months is that what you have or have not is not who you are. Who you are comes from deep within; the way you love, the way you care and how pure you feel your spirit is. "
Good message for someone who's about to put all her belongings on a boat...
And maybe where you are is not who you are neither.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
I Stayed
Today at work we nearly had four big projects that all had to be live by COB, before the long weekend (Close Of Business - do you Yanks use the term as well?). It turns out one didn't actually have to be live today, in fact it doesn't have to be live until November 1, and it was quite embarassing that I was the one who had misread the terms and conditions and made a big overarching schedule and got it wrong. But now most of that project is done, anyway, and we can take some time doing testing and refinement.
Still we had three big projects that all had to be live by the end of the day. Everyone has been in a flap about them for weeks, but no one would cooperate - the clients would take days to answer emails, and one only sent a purchase order for half of the quote; the other suppliers gave us things three days late with only a few hours to process; yet other suppliers started getting their own bossy ideas about how things should be done, or gave us briefs that made no sense whatsoever and then changed them anyway right at the end. It was constant, all week, and I was just thinking the thought that all our clients seemed to have brain damage when I realised my mistake about October 1/November 1 and realised I must have brain damage as well.
But the worst thing was that none of my colleagues took any ownership of these projects at all. They all went vague, and lazy, and spent all day talking on the phone or IM'ing or laughing with each other, and nothing was getting done. I delegated a couple of things to someone else to manage, and the ball was just thoroughly dropped. Maybe he thought I just wanted him to do the initial briefs and I would follow everything else up with the clients. Maybe he never heard back from the designer that the task was done. Maybe he didn't realise what the deadline was. But just at the time he was supposed to be sending an email to the client and getting signoff, he was faffing around setting up a new desk and putting his new bike together. (New bike, you are thinking? We do lots of work for a company that sells Italian bicyles, and they pay us in "contra". So everyone who wants a new bike can get one, on the boss.) I was outraged at this colleague, but didn't say anything to him, I just found out from the designer myself the work was done, and contacted the client myself to get approval, and even did all the HTML changes MYSELF, using notepad and completely hacking around our version control system. But they're done, and live.
At many points during the day I felt like just walking out of there. I kept announcing that I felt like just walking out of there. When they pulled one of the cables out of one of our most important servers, just to see what would happen and to change a setting for the people at the new desks, they timed that little activity to be just exactly when the other supplier was supposed to be busy putting content in to the site that had to be live within a half hour. She had to go make a cup of tea instead. I yelled at them in exasperation, "Why are you doing this right NOW?" I threatened to just get up and walk out of there.
One designer left at 5 - he always leaves at 5, since he gets in at precisely 8 sharp every day, and also he's going away for two weeks to get married. One programmer left at 6, later than usual because he'd stayed to chat with the boss about the cable thing they were doing. One designer was there pretty late but she was working on a project separate from what I was working on. What I was working on, only the senior developer and I stayed. He kept working and testing and publishing and looking into my error messages and coming up with clever solutions, and kept his sense of humor, and when the boss came in a flap and asked him to do something else altogether he just calmly said, "Yep," and kept on doing five things at once and making sure they were all right.
We were the only two, plus the boss, who you'd expect to care if things got done or not. We were the only two that stayed to make sure the job was done properly and the deadlines were met and the customers would not have bad experiences. We were there until 7:30, on the Friday night of a long weekend. I really didn't want to be there at all, starting from about 11 o'clock in the morning, I could see what kind of day it was going to be. And I've already resigned! I'm only going to work there for three more weeks. I have nothing at stake any more, I could be slacking off, I could even start telling off the clients who've been making my life miserable for two years. (Actually it's never a good idea to do that, you never know which bridge you're going to have to turn and run back across one day.) But I did none of these things, I instead took personal responsibility that all the things got done, properly and on time.
Personal responsibility. I just accepted it. I was the only one who was going to make sure it all got done, and communicated to everyone who needed to know. I wasn't panicky, I didn't stress the designers out (I made them proud that they had gone the extra mile and finished the impossible task in time - two of them strutted over to my desk with chests out, to tell me!). I took command, I managed, I stayed back until 7:30, I checked everything, I made sure everything was live that needed to be live. Why do some people take personal responsibility, and others do not?
I suppose it makes me employable. I think it would make me a good mother, if it came to that. But it does make me frustrated with other people. And it makes me very tired!
Still we had three big projects that all had to be live by the end of the day. Everyone has been in a flap about them for weeks, but no one would cooperate - the clients would take days to answer emails, and one only sent a purchase order for half of the quote; the other suppliers gave us things three days late with only a few hours to process; yet other suppliers started getting their own bossy ideas about how things should be done, or gave us briefs that made no sense whatsoever and then changed them anyway right at the end. It was constant, all week, and I was just thinking the thought that all our clients seemed to have brain damage when I realised my mistake about October 1/November 1 and realised I must have brain damage as well.
But the worst thing was that none of my colleagues took any ownership of these projects at all. They all went vague, and lazy, and spent all day talking on the phone or IM'ing or laughing with each other, and nothing was getting done. I delegated a couple of things to someone else to manage, and the ball was just thoroughly dropped. Maybe he thought I just wanted him to do the initial briefs and I would follow everything else up with the clients. Maybe he never heard back from the designer that the task was done. Maybe he didn't realise what the deadline was. But just at the time he was supposed to be sending an email to the client and getting signoff, he was faffing around setting up a new desk and putting his new bike together. (New bike, you are thinking? We do lots of work for a company that sells Italian bicyles, and they pay us in "contra". So everyone who wants a new bike can get one, on the boss.) I was outraged at this colleague, but didn't say anything to him, I just found out from the designer myself the work was done, and contacted the client myself to get approval, and even did all the HTML changes MYSELF, using notepad and completely hacking around our version control system. But they're done, and live.
At many points during the day I felt like just walking out of there. I kept announcing that I felt like just walking out of there. When they pulled one of the cables out of one of our most important servers, just to see what would happen and to change a setting for the people at the new desks, they timed that little activity to be just exactly when the other supplier was supposed to be busy putting content in to the site that had to be live within a half hour. She had to go make a cup of tea instead. I yelled at them in exasperation, "Why are you doing this right NOW?" I threatened to just get up and walk out of there.
One designer left at 5 - he always leaves at 5, since he gets in at precisely 8 sharp every day, and also he's going away for two weeks to get married. One programmer left at 6, later than usual because he'd stayed to chat with the boss about the cable thing they were doing. One designer was there pretty late but she was working on a project separate from what I was working on. What I was working on, only the senior developer and I stayed. He kept working and testing and publishing and looking into my error messages and coming up with clever solutions, and kept his sense of humor, and when the boss came in a flap and asked him to do something else altogether he just calmly said, "Yep," and kept on doing five things at once and making sure they were all right.
We were the only two, plus the boss, who you'd expect to care if things got done or not. We were the only two that stayed to make sure the job was done properly and the deadlines were met and the customers would not have bad experiences. We were there until 7:30, on the Friday night of a long weekend. I really didn't want to be there at all, starting from about 11 o'clock in the morning, I could see what kind of day it was going to be. And I've already resigned! I'm only going to work there for three more weeks. I have nothing at stake any more, I could be slacking off, I could even start telling off the clients who've been making my life miserable for two years. (Actually it's never a good idea to do that, you never know which bridge you're going to have to turn and run back across one day.) But I did none of these things, I instead took personal responsibility that all the things got done, properly and on time.
Personal responsibility. I just accepted it. I was the only one who was going to make sure it all got done, and communicated to everyone who needed to know. I wasn't panicky, I didn't stress the designers out (I made them proud that they had gone the extra mile and finished the impossible task in time - two of them strutted over to my desk with chests out, to tell me!). I took command, I managed, I stayed back until 7:30, I checked everything, I made sure everything was live that needed to be live. Why do some people take personal responsibility, and others do not?
I suppose it makes me employable. I think it would make me a good mother, if it came to that. But it does make me frustrated with other people. And it makes me very tired!
Monday, September 24, 2007
effusion vs craft
Was thinking (and talking to someone else) on the weekend about the old dilemma of effusion vs craft. What's easy for me and what I couldn't cease doing and still breathe is things like this - burbling things out as they come to me.
But should I be spending time/applying myself/setting a goal to/making it my life's project to actually work hard and craft something? Should I spend time trying to hone a written project to give it more value?
Probably.
Astrobarry said something like it a few weeks ago - something like I should hold some things back and work them until they're really good, rather than just saying everything.
And on the weekend I was thinking I would have to stop doing this do start doing the discplined thing.
But I just found my post in Part 2 about buying a new Moleskine notebook (one page full to date, not really doing its job yet), and now I realise I'm being stupid - you of course have to do both. The burbled outpourings are the notes and the drafts. They are the finger exercises, the études, the barre work. And the crafted final thing comes out of it - is not a replacement for it. Is not some higher thing, some detached thing.
I should not feel bad about blogging, it's all part of the swirling journey to whatever good thing it is I'm supposed to write. (Supposed to? Gonna, how 'bout?)
But should I be spending time/applying myself/setting a goal to/making it my life's project to actually work hard and craft something? Should I spend time trying to hone a written project to give it more value?
Probably.
Astrobarry said something like it a few weeks ago - something like I should hold some things back and work them until they're really good, rather than just saying everything.
And on the weekend I was thinking I would have to stop doing this do start doing the discplined thing.
But I just found my post in Part 2 about buying a new Moleskine notebook (one page full to date, not really doing its job yet), and now I realise I'm being stupid - you of course have to do both. The burbled outpourings are the notes and the drafts. They are the finger exercises, the études, the barre work. And the crafted final thing comes out of it - is not a replacement for it. Is not some higher thing, some detached thing.
I should not feel bad about blogging, it's all part of the swirling journey to whatever good thing it is I'm supposed to write. (Supposed to? Gonna, how 'bout?)
three kinds of love
A while ago my favourite professional blogger, Sam De Brito, quoted a theory about how there are three types of love based on different sorts of brain chemicals:
http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/allmenareliars/archives/2007/09/is_prozac_killing_romantic_lov.html
Here's the relevant quote from Anthropologist Helen Fisher:
'"I believe that homo sapiens has evolved (at least) three primary, distinct yet overlapping neural systems for reproduction. The sex drive evolved to motivate ancestral men and women to seek sexual union with a range of partners; romantic love evolved to enable them to focus their courtship energy on a preferred mate, thereby conserving mating time and energy; attachment evolved to enable them to rear a child through infancy together," she said.'
I Googled Dr Fisher and found her web site and synopses of her books. Given my propensity to start any philosophical speculation by finding out the relevant neurophysiological facts, I'm willing to give her ideas a run, and I have at least one philosopher friend who says he's been using her taxonomy to understand his own experiences for a few years now, with great success.
Romanic love is supposed to be an excess of dopamine, and she describes it as more of a drive than an emotion.
So which one is this? An oceany feeling all inside. All oceany. It makes me stop and stare blankly for minutes at a time. I'm pretty sure it's some kind of opiate, and I definitely have a craving to feel it more and more the more I do, but it's not a druggy kind of opiate, doesn't have that underlying menacing buzz to it like beer or excessive tiredness or the post-operative morphine injections I've had in the hospital on occasion. I think it does impair the cognitive faculties, because I'm not even believing that my moving away could do anything to change it. And while stopping and staring I sort of don't get my taxes done, which is my main task tonight.
I'm not sure which one it is, and I don't really care. It started during the week of wanting things, and I just let it start, and that was when I was living in the now and didn't know if I'd move or not, and so it exists in the now.
Some kind of benign opiate, altering cognition but not resulting in sinister drugginess, generating cravings but hopefully not dependancy, and administered via email.
http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/allmenareliars/archives/2007/09/is_prozac_killing_romantic_lov.html
Here's the relevant quote from Anthropologist Helen Fisher:
'"I believe that homo sapiens has evolved (at least) three primary, distinct yet overlapping neural systems for reproduction. The sex drive evolved to motivate ancestral men and women to seek sexual union with a range of partners; romantic love evolved to enable them to focus their courtship energy on a preferred mate, thereby conserving mating time and energy; attachment evolved to enable them to rear a child through infancy together," she said.'
I Googled Dr Fisher and found her web site and synopses of her books. Given my propensity to start any philosophical speculation by finding out the relevant neurophysiological facts, I'm willing to give her ideas a run, and I have at least one philosopher friend who says he's been using her taxonomy to understand his own experiences for a few years now, with great success.
Romanic love is supposed to be an excess of dopamine, and she describes it as more of a drive than an emotion.
So which one is this? An oceany feeling all inside. All oceany. It makes me stop and stare blankly for minutes at a time. I'm pretty sure it's some kind of opiate, and I definitely have a craving to feel it more and more the more I do, but it's not a druggy kind of opiate, doesn't have that underlying menacing buzz to it like beer or excessive tiredness or the post-operative morphine injections I've had in the hospital on occasion. I think it does impair the cognitive faculties, because I'm not even believing that my moving away could do anything to change it. And while stopping and staring I sort of don't get my taxes done, which is my main task tonight.
I'm not sure which one it is, and I don't really care. It started during the week of wanting things, and I just let it start, and that was when I was living in the now and didn't know if I'd move or not, and so it exists in the now.
Some kind of benign opiate, altering cognition but not resulting in sinister drugginess, generating cravings but hopefully not dependancy, and administered via email.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
harder than the last time
The last time I picked up and moved countries I was only 28 years old, so that might be one reason why it was easier - when you're young it seems you can just go out, cast everything off and head out into the wide world to explore. Whereas it seems harder now.
But another big reason I realised today is that when I moved that time, it wasn't a choice between continuing the status quo and doing something new. There was no status quo. I was done with my Ph.D. and the university had cast us out - we all had to do something new, it was just a matter of what. This time I could perfectly well have stayed on here, doing the same things forever in the same settled way. This time my choice was between a status quo and a new unknown.
And this might why the people are so much more upset this time. In rejecting my settled status quo for this unknown thing, I am rejecting them. "Anything but this," my choice might be saying to them, "Even the snowy culturally barren midwest that I don't even know would be better than hanging around you people."
It's not like that at all, but maybe because there is a status quo this time it would seem like that to the people I'm leaving.
But another big reason I realised today is that when I moved that time, it wasn't a choice between continuing the status quo and doing something new. There was no status quo. I was done with my Ph.D. and the university had cast us out - we all had to do something new, it was just a matter of what. This time I could perfectly well have stayed on here, doing the same things forever in the same settled way. This time my choice was between a status quo and a new unknown.
And this might why the people are so much more upset this time. In rejecting my settled status quo for this unknown thing, I am rejecting them. "Anything but this," my choice might be saying to them, "Even the snowy culturally barren midwest that I don't even know would be better than hanging around you people."
It's not like that at all, but maybe because there is a status quo this time it would seem like that to the people I'm leaving.
Friday, September 21, 2007
the real reason
When I've been telling people I'm moving, I guess I've been spinning the reasons differently depending on who I'm talking to. At work it's been all about my aging parents, and how I need to be closer to them, because how could I leave a job I'm so well suited to for another job? It has to be something other than career, it must be family.
But anyone who knows anything about US geography knows that I am moving nowhere near my parents, I am going back to the midwest which is my home but it is a two-hour flight to get to Mom and Dad, who live in the West, in a place where I have lived before but that is not my home. So for those people I sometimes focus on the career opportunity angle, more than the family angle.
For the cousins, the family angle is no problem because they in fact do live quite close to where I'm going to be, and they understand how it's our ancestral home, even though I've never actually been to Appleton before.
But tonight, finally, someone really got it, and really understood why. Perhaps because she's known me since a few months after I moved to Sydney. She has known me during the hope and promise of my move here with my ex with our Terrace House dreams, the dot com collapse of my career, the fun but also disappointment and frustration of my unemployment, then his retreat into his office so that he would no longer leave his computer screen for anyone or anything. She stayed with me during the pain and absurdity of the break-up, and was right beside me doing every new thing I explored to rebuild my identity - came along to my talks at the Philosophy group, met up at the Art Gallery, traded DVDs and books, invited me to take the poetry class. She's met all my funny new liaisons, my new friends. She's been right through the narrative with me, and so she understands how this makes sense.
It's not for my career. It's not for my parents, altogether. It's kind of just a happy coincidence that so many cousins happen to live nearby. She described my real reason back to me tonight, with real insight - it's because of what I've been through here, and that Sydney still has a tinge of pain, and I need to start clean and be in my own place, and start something new all of my own.
She's a writer, and a life-long studier of narrative. Of course she would get it. Of course she would be able to tell the story in a way that makes sense of it. She's the only one, so far. But I'm so glad I've been able to see this move reflected back as it makes narrative sense in her eyes. It makes it seem much more right, now, and hopefully will ease some of the heaviness I've been feeling for the last few weeks.
But anyone who knows anything about US geography knows that I am moving nowhere near my parents, I am going back to the midwest which is my home but it is a two-hour flight to get to Mom and Dad, who live in the West, in a place where I have lived before but that is not my home. So for those people I sometimes focus on the career opportunity angle, more than the family angle.
For the cousins, the family angle is no problem because they in fact do live quite close to where I'm going to be, and they understand how it's our ancestral home, even though I've never actually been to Appleton before.
But tonight, finally, someone really got it, and really understood why. Perhaps because she's known me since a few months after I moved to Sydney. She has known me during the hope and promise of my move here with my ex with our Terrace House dreams, the dot com collapse of my career, the fun but also disappointment and frustration of my unemployment, then his retreat into his office so that he would no longer leave his computer screen for anyone or anything. She stayed with me during the pain and absurdity of the break-up, and was right beside me doing every new thing I explored to rebuild my identity - came along to my talks at the Philosophy group, met up at the Art Gallery, traded DVDs and books, invited me to take the poetry class. She's met all my funny new liaisons, my new friends. She's been right through the narrative with me, and so she understands how this makes sense.
It's not for my career. It's not for my parents, altogether. It's kind of just a happy coincidence that so many cousins happen to live nearby. She described my real reason back to me tonight, with real insight - it's because of what I've been through here, and that Sydney still has a tinge of pain, and I need to start clean and be in my own place, and start something new all of my own.
She's a writer, and a life-long studier of narrative. Of course she would get it. Of course she would be able to tell the story in a way that makes sense of it. She's the only one, so far. But I'm so glad I've been able to see this move reflected back as it makes narrative sense in her eyes. It makes it seem much more right, now, and hopefully will ease some of the heaviness I've been feeling for the last few weeks.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
the week of being here and now
Just before I got the job offer, maybe even the very week before, on the instructions of my favorite online astrologer Astrobarry, I spent a whole week wanting things (readers of Part 2 will remember). In undertaking the exercise, I realised I had a circuit-breaker installed in my head that when I started to want things would shut down, and I'm sure that was installed via the heartbreak (which readers of Part 2 will also know about), when all I wanted was my ex but I couldn't have him so I had to just stop wanting that. During this week not too long ago, I let myself want things. If the circuit-breaker threatened to budge in, I just assumed that my wish was within my grasp. I let my mind and heart and imagination free, and wanted things for a whole week (btw, I didn't want my ex back once, even for a second, which was a relief).
Looking back, that might have been one of the happiest weeks of my life, and the feeling I remember in retrospect was a connectedness to the here and now. Although I was wanting things, I was also not making any plans more than one month in advance, in compatibility with my ambiguous future (and good thing, too, I've hardly had to cancel anything in November when I won't be here). So, as a result I think I was throwing myself rather intensely into things that were happening right then, and I recall a sense of feeling alive and a sense of vibrating in harmony with everything. A kind of celestial hum around me and in me, and in harmonic vibration with the earth and the city and the fun things in it, and the depth and quality and art and all that stuff. During this week I walked through Glebe and bought all those millions of Murakami books, and had a look at the earnest student types drinking coffee under the colourful posters for alternative musicians and dance events. I did a gig at the Art Gallery in which the rest of the world evaporated in mist, and I had always been only there, at that till, helping people. I was in the city and walked around the edge, past the Opera House, then to the other side looking back t the Opera House, then around the Rocks, had a nice glass of wine in a small but very cool wine bar. Had intense but very present conversations. Delighted in good company. Etc etc.
During that week of intense being, I occasionally stopped still and had to stare at the wall for a while before I could continue. A friend of mine describes having done this in the months after a very devastating relationship breakup, and she thought it was her brain trying to rewrite its programming and get her on track of her new future. Was I doing that?
But here I am in my new future and it doesn't feel the same way at all. Before my big decision, in the pain of the breakup, I could never sleep - readers of Part 2 know this because instead I stayed up chatting to you. I spent hours and hours past my bedtime online, always looking for something. I always felt unsettled, lonely, uncomforted, maybe something like unforgiven. Like yelled at but not reconciled. Like the kid who's been sent to her room, during that time before one parent or other knocks on the door to sit gently on the bed and work it out, after the sending to the room but before the working it out. I thought that when I had my new future this feeling would go away, but in fact I feel worse.
And I am doing more wrong, that would get a kid sent to her room. I am causing pain and devastation every single day. "You CAN'T leave!" I hear it every single day, from someone or other. I feel terrible. I had to do the very worst one this evening, and at first they were very happy for me and supportive but too much alcohol intervened and it actually got even a bit scary at the end. I fled without dinner, and I'm cowering here. I've been a very bad girl, I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. How can I be, when all these people are in such pain? But how can I not be, when I feel so bad and unloved being here? Something called me home. Something laid down this path before me all too easily and has made it impossible to do otherwise. What am I being called home to do?
From here I can't see it.
I thought I would feel excited and resolved and it would cure the things that were bad about being here. Maybe I have to actually not be here any more for these good effects to happen. I hope I don't take this gloom and sleeplessness with me. Something else in some horoscope or other said something about finding something that will aid my own healing. I can't just stay here to salve other people's pain. Their pain is their own. I have to go home. I have to go Home. It's time to go home. The black earth of the midwest is calling me, and I have to answer the call, and it's my quest and journey to do, and they can't do it for me, and I have no idea why, but it's what I'm going to do.
Sometimes decisions aren't crystalline and clear. Sometimes they're muddy. But I conjured this up out of my head, in May, and it's happening now, and it's what will be.
Lord, grant me clarity.
Lord, heal those who are hurting and it's not my fault but they're blaming me. That's not right, is it? Lord, hold them in your hands and support them so I can set them down and get on my way.
- Are you all worried that I'm turning into a religious looney already and I'm not even on the plane yet? Blame the Moet.
What a weird week this is.
Looking back, that might have been one of the happiest weeks of my life, and the feeling I remember in retrospect was a connectedness to the here and now. Although I was wanting things, I was also not making any plans more than one month in advance, in compatibility with my ambiguous future (and good thing, too, I've hardly had to cancel anything in November when I won't be here). So, as a result I think I was throwing myself rather intensely into things that were happening right then, and I recall a sense of feeling alive and a sense of vibrating in harmony with everything. A kind of celestial hum around me and in me, and in harmonic vibration with the earth and the city and the fun things in it, and the depth and quality and art and all that stuff. During this week I walked through Glebe and bought all those millions of Murakami books, and had a look at the earnest student types drinking coffee under the colourful posters for alternative musicians and dance events. I did a gig at the Art Gallery in which the rest of the world evaporated in mist, and I had always been only there, at that till, helping people. I was in the city and walked around the edge, past the Opera House, then to the other side looking back t the Opera House, then around the Rocks, had a nice glass of wine in a small but very cool wine bar. Had intense but very present conversations. Delighted in good company. Etc etc.
During that week of intense being, I occasionally stopped still and had to stare at the wall for a while before I could continue. A friend of mine describes having done this in the months after a very devastating relationship breakup, and she thought it was her brain trying to rewrite its programming and get her on track of her new future. Was I doing that?
But here I am in my new future and it doesn't feel the same way at all. Before my big decision, in the pain of the breakup, I could never sleep - readers of Part 2 know this because instead I stayed up chatting to you. I spent hours and hours past my bedtime online, always looking for something. I always felt unsettled, lonely, uncomforted, maybe something like unforgiven. Like yelled at but not reconciled. Like the kid who's been sent to her room, during that time before one parent or other knocks on the door to sit gently on the bed and work it out, after the sending to the room but before the working it out. I thought that when I had my new future this feeling would go away, but in fact I feel worse.
And I am doing more wrong, that would get a kid sent to her room. I am causing pain and devastation every single day. "You CAN'T leave!" I hear it every single day, from someone or other. I feel terrible. I had to do the very worst one this evening, and at first they were very happy for me and supportive but too much alcohol intervened and it actually got even a bit scary at the end. I fled without dinner, and I'm cowering here. I've been a very bad girl, I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. How can I be, when all these people are in such pain? But how can I not be, when I feel so bad and unloved being here? Something called me home. Something laid down this path before me all too easily and has made it impossible to do otherwise. What am I being called home to do?
From here I can't see it.
I thought I would feel excited and resolved and it would cure the things that were bad about being here. Maybe I have to actually not be here any more for these good effects to happen. I hope I don't take this gloom and sleeplessness with me. Something else in some horoscope or other said something about finding something that will aid my own healing. I can't just stay here to salve other people's pain. Their pain is their own. I have to go home. I have to go Home. It's time to go home. The black earth of the midwest is calling me, and I have to answer the call, and it's my quest and journey to do, and they can't do it for me, and I have no idea why, but it's what I'm going to do.
Sometimes decisions aren't crystalline and clear. Sometimes they're muddy. But I conjured this up out of my head, in May, and it's happening now, and it's what will be.
Lord, grant me clarity.
Lord, heal those who are hurting and it's not my fault but they're blaming me. That's not right, is it? Lord, hold them in your hands and support them so I can set them down and get on my way.
- Are you all worried that I'm turning into a religious looney already and I'm not even on the plane yet? Blame the Moet.
What a weird week this is.
want vs need
The thing making me most anxious at the moment about the move is the car thing. I'm moving from a transport-rich inner city where I haven't even thought about having a car in two years to a big, flat, spread-out midwestern town with no public transport to speak of at all. I have to get a car, like, at the airport when I arrive. I'm not sure how it's all going to work what with floating the removal expenses and trying to get financing without any credit history there for the last 15 years. But I'm sure it will be fine.
What I should do is just buy something boring and used and cheap and reliable, to get me through the first year or so.
What I've been intending to do for several years is get a Toyota Prius and do my bit for Al Gore and that stuff he's always on about...
But the other day I was reading the New Yorker, delighted by the sensation that the ads are finally directed at me, and at the side of a page my eye was caught by an ad for the Mini.
Now I can't stop thinking about Minis.
They run on petrol, they're too small, they bottom out in the snow, they're ostentatious, they're overpriced (especially because I would have to buy a new one), and since I want a red one it's probably got a huge surcharge for having a mid-life-crisis colour.
But, a Mini!
Which person am I going to be when I get there - because I can image all three. Self-denying, nonmaterialistic Frugal Girl; virtuous, recycling, home-made-whole-wheat-bread-baking, environmentally-active Green Girl; or frivolous but sexy Broke Girl?
What I should do is just buy something boring and used and cheap and reliable, to get me through the first year or so.
What I've been intending to do for several years is get a Toyota Prius and do my bit for Al Gore and that stuff he's always on about...
But the other day I was reading the New Yorker, delighted by the sensation that the ads are finally directed at me, and at the side of a page my eye was caught by an ad for the Mini.
Now I can't stop thinking about Minis.
They run on petrol, they're too small, they bottom out in the snow, they're ostentatious, they're overpriced (especially because I would have to buy a new one), and since I want a red one it's probably got a huge surcharge for having a mid-life-crisis colour.
But, a Mini!
Which person am I going to be when I get there - because I can image all three. Self-denying, nonmaterialistic Frugal Girl; virtuous, recycling, home-made-whole-wheat-bread-baking, environmentally-active Green Girl; or frivolous but sexy Broke Girl?
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
more stuff I'm looking forward to
A couple of photos on the web site of my own cyber-Welcome Wagon, Jeff Lindsay, have got me thinking.
This one of a downtown alley at dusk.
And this one of a nondescript building out of town somewhere (easier to view as #22 of his Appleton Mystery Photos #2 contest).
These are very particular American landscapes, which you can see in almost every town in the country, but you don't see pictures of them in any of the real estate brochures or on the tourist web sites. But these are where I will live. They capture a particular era - when is it? 1940's? 1950's? They have a solidity to them. Somehow I can think of any structure I've seen in all of Australia that has the kind of solidity that that white industrial building has in that photo above. They are weathered. They do their job, with a kind of seriousness and resignation, but they also have a straightforwardness and a pride, and a humility.
This is making me think of other American landscapes I might inhabit. Divey bars, mediocre hotels, shabby but dependable diners. Pool halls. Proper, American pool halls with neon beer signs. I could learn to play pool, properly this time. I could get some weathered, serious but humble, honest gentleman to teach me the fine points, adn then I could hustle games in the next pool hall over to supplement my corproate marketing income. I could hang out in a proper, American, solid brick, divey pool hall.
How can you not be excited, when you imagine a thing like that?
This one of a downtown alley at dusk.
And this one of a nondescript building out of town somewhere (easier to view as #22 of his Appleton Mystery Photos #2 contest).
These are very particular American landscapes, which you can see in almost every town in the country, but you don't see pictures of them in any of the real estate brochures or on the tourist web sites. But these are where I will live. They capture a particular era - when is it? 1940's? 1950's? They have a solidity to them. Somehow I can think of any structure I've seen in all of Australia that has the kind of solidity that that white industrial building has in that photo above. They are weathered. They do their job, with a kind of seriousness and resignation, but they also have a straightforwardness and a pride, and a humility.
This is making me think of other American landscapes I might inhabit. Divey bars, mediocre hotels, shabby but dependable diners. Pool halls. Proper, American pool halls with neon beer signs. I could learn to play pool, properly this time. I could get some weathered, serious but humble, honest gentleman to teach me the fine points, adn then I could hustle games in the next pool hall over to supplement my corproate marketing income. I could hang out in a proper, American, solid brick, divey pool hall.
How can you not be excited, when you imagine a thing like that?
something to wash the cheese down
I was gratified to find this quote on the very best site about Appleton, http://www.jefflindsay.com/:
Maybe I will fit in after all...
More at:
http://www.jefflindsay.com/Appleton.html
"(Appleton) ranks in the national top 10 for bars per capita (Appleton was sixth in the 1980 census, with most of the top 10 occupied by other Wisconsin cities)."
Maybe I will fit in after all...
More at:
http://www.jefflindsay.com/Appleton.html
Saturday, September 15, 2007
It's not all melted cheese
I got my packet of documents from the HR department of my new employer today, and they very kindly included a copy of the Fox Valley Magazine, to give me a sense of the place. All kinds of things in the magazine are freaking me out, but the one freaking me out the very most is an article on places to eat in town where they have messy food that will make you need lots of napkins. The photos accompanying the article show two different gigantic, overstuffed, obscenely large sandwiches on open buns. One of them was a meatball sandwich with tomato sauce that looked to have about two pounds of cheese melted on it. How am I going to manage that kind of food when it's all around, all the time?
But then I've started to be reminded of the nice things about America as well. I was reading my new issue of The New Yorker, and now all the ads are aimed at me (I have a sudden desire to buy myself a Mini to drive, but that's another discussion...). I went to see a really mediocre movie with Catherine Zeta-Jones in it, but her clothes in the film are just fabulous, so I guess you can buy fabulous clothes in America, and the interiors were glamorous with lots of wood trim and etc., so American has at least some houses in it that look, on the inside, just like Surry Hills terraces.
I will be myself there. I don't have to eat two pounds of melted cheese for lunch, if I don't want to (if I do, it will be there for me). I don't have to live in a suburban mansion. I can still live somewhere cool, with modernist furniture, if I want to. I can still wear lots of black. I can retain my class and intellectualism (people who actually know me are laughing now - "Class? Her?" Maybe I'm just classy on the inside).
And at the bottle shop on the way home I was headed to the back corner and trying to decide between Crown and Toohey's Blue, wondering which one I will miss more (my sister drinks Toohey's Blue all the time at home, they're importing it now, so I'm sure it won't be scarce). And then I stopped short and turned to the exotic imported beer fridge instead. So, sitting waiting for me in my fridge right this moment is a whole six-pack of Budweiser.
God bless America.
But then I've started to be reminded of the nice things about America as well. I was reading my new issue of The New Yorker, and now all the ads are aimed at me (I have a sudden desire to buy myself a Mini to drive, but that's another discussion...). I went to see a really mediocre movie with Catherine Zeta-Jones in it, but her clothes in the film are just fabulous, so I guess you can buy fabulous clothes in America, and the interiors were glamorous with lots of wood trim and etc., so American has at least some houses in it that look, on the inside, just like Surry Hills terraces.
I will be myself there. I don't have to eat two pounds of melted cheese for lunch, if I don't want to (if I do, it will be there for me). I don't have to live in a suburban mansion. I can still live somewhere cool, with modernist furniture, if I want to. I can still wear lots of black. I can retain my class and intellectualism (people who actually know me are laughing now - "Class? Her?" Maybe I'm just classy on the inside).
And at the bottle shop on the way home I was headed to the back corner and trying to decide between Crown and Toohey's Blue, wondering which one I will miss more (my sister drinks Toohey's Blue all the time at home, they're importing it now, so I'm sure it won't be scarce). And then I stopped short and turned to the exotic imported beer fridge instead. So, sitting waiting for me in my fridge right this moment is a whole six-pack of Budweiser.
God bless America.
something that shows the frame of mind I'm in
I was walking to the train station today and passed through Ward Park, which is right next to Northcott, a huge public housing building, perhaps the most famous one in Australia (there was an ABC documentary on it last year called "900 Neighbours"). I overheard this conversation:
Old man sitting on a park bench: "Are you happy with what you got?"
Younger woman with blonde hair who was walking by, with husband and two little girls: "Yeah, I am, considering everything."
Old man: "I got more than I expected."
I thought they were strangers, and that this was a question this man typically asked passers-by. I thought the conversation was about the whole of their lives and their satisfaction with it.
But then the woman said, "It was seven or eight hundred dollars, wasn't it?" and I realised they were talking about some settlement in which they were both parties. And then thought how funny it was that I had taken them to be having the other conversation. I would love to put my version of the conversation in a movie one day.
Suppose I'm thinking the big thoughts this week.
Old man sitting on a park bench: "Are you happy with what you got?"
Younger woman with blonde hair who was walking by, with husband and two little girls: "Yeah, I am, considering everything."
Old man: "I got more than I expected."
I thought they were strangers, and that this was a question this man typically asked passers-by. I thought the conversation was about the whole of their lives and their satisfaction with it.
But then the woman said, "It was seven or eight hundred dollars, wasn't it?" and I realised they were talking about some settlement in which they were both parties. And then thought how funny it was that I had taken them to be having the other conversation. I would love to put my version of the conversation in a movie one day.
Suppose I'm thinking the big thoughts this week.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Why do we wait?
Telling people that you're moving away makes everyone suddenly closer. Today I had lunch, finally, with our office manager from work, which we've been talking about doing for a year at least, and we thoroughly opened up to each other, and were giving each other the same advice back and forth. She's such a lovely woman and she's in a fair bit of pain right now in her life. I hope that I was any help at all. You think that people who have a strong faith can't have any problems, but they're the same as all of us. I have time to have a few more lunches with her, but if there hadn't been a time limit, would we have done it? How long would it have taken?
And another one, I had sent an email the day before and got no reply but today he must have read it and he rang me straight away, right in the middle of the afternoon out of the blue, and invited me to dinner tonight (I didn't go but still). This after a year and a half of basically nothing outside the formal structures of the group in which I know him, and now all of a sudden he rings me at work and invites me to dinner? Doofus head, I wanted to say, if you wanted to do this kind of thing with me I've been right here all this time, why did you wait? You shouldn't have taken me for granted.
I have another lunch with a work colleague tomorrow, one who has really needed me but I just ignored him and left him to his own devices. Why haven't we been lunching once a week? I guess because the soft stuff, the personal stuff, can't go down on the timesheet. But it's a shame. Learn from my example, people! If you like someone, give them a call right now, make time to see them. In a fleeting second someone you depend on always being there might get a job offer across the world and have only eight weeks left to spend with you.
And another one, I had sent an email the day before and got no reply but today he must have read it and he rang me straight away, right in the middle of the afternoon out of the blue, and invited me to dinner tonight (I didn't go but still). This after a year and a half of basically nothing outside the formal structures of the group in which I know him, and now all of a sudden he rings me at work and invites me to dinner? Doofus head, I wanted to say, if you wanted to do this kind of thing with me I've been right here all this time, why did you wait? You shouldn't have taken me for granted.
I have another lunch with a work colleague tomorrow, one who has really needed me but I just ignored him and left him to his own devices. Why haven't we been lunching once a week? I guess because the soft stuff, the personal stuff, can't go down on the timesheet. But it's a shame. Learn from my example, people! If you like someone, give them a call right now, make time to see them. In a fleeting second someone you depend on always being there might get a job offer across the world and have only eight weeks left to spend with you.
The Weeping
Yes, it has started already. Inevitable with a move this big, and goes along with the doubt, and the hesitation, but then also the excitement and the sense of purpose.
Last night it was because I was so, so sad to be leaving my boss. If I could just move Sydney and the job closer to Mom and Dad, I would, so that was always going to be a regret and a cost of this.
Tonight it's because a young man asked me for greater honesty, and I didn't give it to him, but maybe I will before this is all over.
Even though I haven't actually signed the offer letter and returned it, the boss told everyone today I was leaving, and told them my finish date, so this thing now has a momentum of its own.
Am I doing the right thing? Does such a concept even make sense? I'll do one thing and will never know what would have happened on those roads not taken.
In the words of a wise man, well, not wise at all, pretty foolish but maybe a bit clever, in the words of that man,
What else are you gonna do?
Last night it was because I was so, so sad to be leaving my boss. If I could just move Sydney and the job closer to Mom and Dad, I would, so that was always going to be a regret and a cost of this.
Tonight it's because a young man asked me for greater honesty, and I didn't give it to him, but maybe I will before this is all over.
Even though I haven't actually signed the offer letter and returned it, the boss told everyone today I was leaving, and told them my finish date, so this thing now has a momentum of its own.
Am I doing the right thing? Does such a concept even make sense? I'll do one thing and will never know what would have happened on those roads not taken.
In the words of a wise man, well, not wise at all, pretty foolish but maybe a bit clever, in the words of that man,
What else are you gonna do?
Monday, September 10, 2007
The Offer
Saturday morning at 7:30 am I was awakened from a deep sleep by a ringing phone. It was the hiring manager for the job in Wisconsin, calling to make me an offer.
I didn't accept right away, but needless to say I didn't go back to bed.
That morning was filled with phone calls - to my immediate family, to more distant family, to the people who have been hoping for this outcome and who will be the most excited about it.
That afternoon I had to go in to work for a bit, and was then meeting a friend at Wynyard Station, so I got to walk through the APEC-deserted city. There were about four people in town, including me, but cops on every corner and a security guard in front of every single tall building, and one in front of the war memorial. I decided to try to get as close to the fence as I could, just to see it. I first walked up Pitt St, but got stopped in front of the Westin because some dignitaries were leaving in their motorcades for dinner at the Opera House. So I doubled back and walked up George Street, and that way I saw it - got to Bridge St, which was easy to spot because there were four cops at the intersection, in bright yellow vests, one on each corner. I turned right and saw the fence, and a police car with lights flashing (but no siren) moving slowly up the street a few blocks away - part of a motorcade no doubt. And there was a big guy in a very nice black suit, who had an earpiece with a curly wire. Just like in the movies. The whole thing was impressive, but creepy, and I'm glad it only lasted a few days.
I was meeting the friend at Wynyard to go see a Rugby League semi-final at Brookvale oval, the first finals appearance by the South Sydney Rabbitohs in umpteen years (18? I forget the exact figure, which shows that although I was wearing the scarf, standing in the Burrow and yelling my head off, I'm not a true fan). I took in the sights and sounds in as much detail as I could, because the fact did not escape me - This Might Be My Last Ever Rugby League Match. I will remember the sounds the crowd makes. The drive to the try line. The smell of the grass after rain. The mud underfoot on the way to the loos. The friendliness of everyone, but also the underlying, growing menace of a stadium full of boofy blokes who've been downing cans of Jim Beam & Coke for six hours. The bright lights. The thrill of the try, and the agony of the video ref's decision and the bad call. Ah, League.
The next day I had to be at the Art Gallery, and thought as I walked up Crown Street to Stanley in East Sydney before turning and following my usual path there, This Might Be The Last Time I Do This Walk. Met up with a gorgeous, wonderful, amazing young man, who if stars had aligned and he had been born earlier might have been something else, but he's just a new friend and a ship passing my ship in the night, because he's probably moving on from this place as well. And we sat at the end of the wharf and made Russell Crowe's security guard uneasy and talked about life and love and art and music, and captured in our eyes the image of the water and the harbour, and the navy ships and police boat and helicopters because it was still APEC weekend and it gives it a sense of time and place, and he listened, because he's a wonderful listener, and he wasn't freaked out that I was moving, although I was, and it was a wonderful night.
Today I had to tell my boss. I had a stomach ache all day, which got worse and worse and worse, but there turned out to be a perfect time to tell him, 4pm after the staff meeting, so we didn't have to talk too long and he didn't have to stay there very long, but could go home and sleep on it. I can't even describe how sad it makes me, I will try to describe it later, because this is my dream job, for real, and I will never find another one as good as this ever in my life, and I love him and had to let him down. But I love my parents more, and that's what this is all about.
Once that was done, I felt a weight lifted, and now I feel excited. Now I am making lists of things I want to do when I get there (ice skating lessons, join the Democratic party), and there was a lightness in my step as I walked home.
I have an intense, challenging couple of months ahead of me. The emotional roller coaster hasn't even got started yet, and I don't even want to think about the height of its highs and the low of its lows. Hardly anyone in town knows about this yet.
But it's the new chapter. It's my new adventure. Welcome everyone to Ellen Part 3.
I didn't accept right away, but needless to say I didn't go back to bed.
That morning was filled with phone calls - to my immediate family, to more distant family, to the people who have been hoping for this outcome and who will be the most excited about it.
That afternoon I had to go in to work for a bit, and was then meeting a friend at Wynyard Station, so I got to walk through the APEC-deserted city. There were about four people in town, including me, but cops on every corner and a security guard in front of every single tall building, and one in front of the war memorial. I decided to try to get as close to the fence as I could, just to see it. I first walked up Pitt St, but got stopped in front of the Westin because some dignitaries were leaving in their motorcades for dinner at the Opera House. So I doubled back and walked up George Street, and that way I saw it - got to Bridge St, which was easy to spot because there were four cops at the intersection, in bright yellow vests, one on each corner. I turned right and saw the fence, and a police car with lights flashing (but no siren) moving slowly up the street a few blocks away - part of a motorcade no doubt. And there was a big guy in a very nice black suit, who had an earpiece with a curly wire. Just like in the movies. The whole thing was impressive, but creepy, and I'm glad it only lasted a few days.
I was meeting the friend at Wynyard to go see a Rugby League semi-final at Brookvale oval, the first finals appearance by the South Sydney Rabbitohs in umpteen years (18? I forget the exact figure, which shows that although I was wearing the scarf, standing in the Burrow and yelling my head off, I'm not a true fan). I took in the sights and sounds in as much detail as I could, because the fact did not escape me - This Might Be My Last Ever Rugby League Match. I will remember the sounds the crowd makes. The drive to the try line. The smell of the grass after rain. The mud underfoot on the way to the loos. The friendliness of everyone, but also the underlying, growing menace of a stadium full of boofy blokes who've been downing cans of Jim Beam & Coke for six hours. The bright lights. The thrill of the try, and the agony of the video ref's decision and the bad call. Ah, League.
The next day I had to be at the Art Gallery, and thought as I walked up Crown Street to Stanley in East Sydney before turning and following my usual path there, This Might Be The Last Time I Do This Walk. Met up with a gorgeous, wonderful, amazing young man, who if stars had aligned and he had been born earlier might have been something else, but he's just a new friend and a ship passing my ship in the night, because he's probably moving on from this place as well. And we sat at the end of the wharf and made Russell Crowe's security guard uneasy and talked about life and love and art and music, and captured in our eyes the image of the water and the harbour, and the navy ships and police boat and helicopters because it was still APEC weekend and it gives it a sense of time and place, and he listened, because he's a wonderful listener, and he wasn't freaked out that I was moving, although I was, and it was a wonderful night.
Today I had to tell my boss. I had a stomach ache all day, which got worse and worse and worse, but there turned out to be a perfect time to tell him, 4pm after the staff meeting, so we didn't have to talk too long and he didn't have to stay there very long, but could go home and sleep on it. I can't even describe how sad it makes me, I will try to describe it later, because this is my dream job, for real, and I will never find another one as good as this ever in my life, and I love him and had to let him down. But I love my parents more, and that's what this is all about.
Once that was done, I felt a weight lifted, and now I feel excited. Now I am making lists of things I want to do when I get there (ice skating lessons, join the Democratic party), and there was a lightness in my step as I walked home.
I have an intense, challenging couple of months ahead of me. The emotional roller coaster hasn't even got started yet, and I don't even want to think about the height of its highs and the low of its lows. Hardly anyone in town knows about this yet.
But it's the new chapter. It's my new adventure. Welcome everyone to Ellen Part 3.