Just when things start getting comfortable

I should never write about – or even acknowledge, not even to myself! – how much I'm enjoying something, for example my new shorter work schedule, and some of the work I've been doing lately (the first work I've had the opportunity to do in several years that I feel really proud of and excited about), and even the little promotion and new job title I've just been given .... because it seems like the moment I mention a thing like that, something happens to mess it up.

In this case I guess it isn't exactly messed up, but I'm anxious and stressed anyway, to the point where I'm noticing myself consciously trying to Not think about this situation, even though it isn't actually a bad thing ... because every time I think of it, this wave of adrenaline gushes into my stomach and I feel like I might pass out.

What is happening is that I have an opportunity to do some exciting new work, and I'm trying to figure out how I can say "yes" to it and still keep doing the fun parts of my current job. I've received a formal offer from this new organization, and now based on that information I have to work out the logistics and decide what I want to do and how I'm going to present my request to my current boss .... which terrifies me because what if ... well, it just terrifies me because I'm always terrified of asking ... for ....

Actually this is interesting, because when I think about it I can't really identify exactly what I'm afraid of here. Afraid they'll fire me? But why would they do that? They just promoted me! Afraid they'll say no, and I'll have to choose one job or the other – neither of which is really enough all by itself, since both are currently only part time? Afraid I won't get what I want?

This anxious, sort of sick-to-the-stomach feeling is so familiar to me, and I hate it. I lived with it for years, literally years – pretty much the entire decade of my thirties – and I don't want to give any more of my time to it! Inside my body it feels dizzy, sick, terrified. Like I can't think. And in terms of my way of being and acting in the world, what it always seems to bring up more than anything is just this kind of blind paralysis – like I desperately want NEED to jettison everything that is not absolutely essential to life – basically, everything but air, food, water and possibly shelter – and dig into my current position like one of those crusty crustacean creatures (barnacles?) that cling to the edges of tidepools, the ones that will let you tear their shells and bodies into pieces before they'll let you pry them off their rock.

What I want right now is to call up these new people (they're not even new, actually – I've known several of them for years) and tell them sorry, changed my mind, can't do it, good-bye, please go away now and stop scaring me! And then go back to my job on Monday as if nothing had ever happened.

A few years ago I think that's just what I would have done. Now, though ... It's crazy, because at this moment I really feel almost as if I could actually throw up from anxiety. And yet I know I'm going to go ahead and try to do this new thing.

In my imagination, I see some vague scene of crashing and burning, people pounding on tables and yelling at me, my coveted projects ripped from my grasp and awarded to my nemesis (over whom I've finally, only just in the last week, been given some authority – which I really don't want to give up so soon!) as punishment for daring to ask for more than is being offered .... I see Me, crying and drooling, begging to be taken back ....

At our second meeting, one of the interviewers pronounced me "wholesome, gentle-mannered, and well-spoken." She meant it as a good thing, but all I heard was "weak, weak, weak."

Why do I get so scared about stuff like this? This process of working myself into a tizzy over pending changes or decisions is also very familiar – the deliberate dramatization of something that is not innately dramatic, as a way of immobilizing or protecting myself from having to take actions I don't feel prepared to take. So passive, so avoidant. So embarrassing, to be such a person ... aren't we all supposed to be able to boldly and confidently go for the gusto, taking the bull by the horns, driving our own destiny, etc.?

Anyway. It's good to know the drama is optional – I'm glad I remembered that. I am going to spend some time tomorrow calming myself down and writing lists, sorting out all the variables, and hopefully coming to a clear understanding of what it is I actually would like to have happen here. And then, a plan for how to ask for it.

Even if I totally botch the negotiation and end up homeless in a ditch, just having made the effort will have been a step forward.

In other news, I got a new little section of garden raked out today and planted seeds for sweet peas (the flowers), various assorted lettuces, watermelon radishes, spinach, rainbow chard, cinnamon basil, Italian large-leaf basil, bok choy, sorrel, cilantro, and several different kinds of nasturtiums. It's still kind of cold, and maybe a little early for the basil, but I enjoyed being out there. I cut chicken wire "slip covers" for each of the beds, because Tater can never resist digging in freshly turned soil. I hope the wire will be enough to keep his sweet little paws away.

We also transplanted (a couple of weeks ago) an 8-foot Japanese maple out of a half barrel and into the ground. It's all leafed out now and really beautiful – bright green star-shaped leaves with little magenta flowery looking things that might turn into seeds ... I can't remember what this particular tree does, but will be keeping an eye on them. I'm underplanting it with bok choy. Not traditional, but I think it will be pretty.

Top 5 rules for bushwhacking

1. Wear good gloves. I like these because they come in extra-small – a perfect fit – AND they come in orange, which makes them easier to find when you accidentally leave them lying around somewhere in the grass.

2. Wear long sleeves. Otherwise, scratches.

3. Drink lots of water. If you don't, you will wake up the next morning with a dehydration headache.

4. If you're going to be at it for an hour or more, it's okay to have something nice and carby before you start. In fact, you probably should do that – it's hard work!

5. Be sure to stop well before sundown, so the birds and other assorted creatures have time to check out the revised space before they have to settle in for the night.

Tonight I spent a couple of hours getting started on a project I've been wanting to do for the longest time: clearing out some of the dead wood that's been accumulating for years and years in the back field. It's mostly dead coyote bush, so old and rotten a piece as big around as your arm will break off in your hand with just a tug.

Mr. A and I have been having a philosophical disagreement about how much dead wood is necessary as wildlife habitat and how much it might be possible to remove, or at least consolidate into piles, in order to create some semblance of order out there ... although I realize that a natural, wild oak woodland isn't necessarily what you might call an "orderly" kind of landscape ... and maybe if we were trying to maintain the land in its purely native form it would be better to just let the dead wood fall and rot where it lands (which, by the way, is mostly what we are doing, anyway).

But if this were a purely natural native landscape it would not be overrun with fennel and star thistle, which it is starting to be, and since I've gotten him to agree to let me try to eradicate these invasive non-native plants, I just feel like ... well dammit, I'm not asking to turn the place into Hidcote Manor.* I just want to tidy it up a bit.

I'm a little afraid he's going to be mad when he sees how much I did out there. But I did make a point not to destroy thickets or copses where animals had clearly been nesting. And I haven't moved any of the piles to the back of the property yet, either. So if he wants to build critter condos out of the wood, he can.

Slowly but surely I am starting to assert myself enough to feel like this is at least partly my place, too. It's been a long time coming.

* That's the picture at the top up there. This is more where we're heading with our landscape.

Vive Las Vegas

Just to let you all know - I am in Las Vegas, America's city of lights (or so they say, I think) - preparing to check the presses early and all day tomorrow for the next run of my "big project." This is an exciting one (and yes I do get excited over small things - it's one of my best qualities) because this time I insisted on color correcting the cover myself and I think it's going to be really stellar - not all washed out as it has tended to be in past issues, after being corrected by our darling man who is used to adjusting them for newsprint instead of "fine printing " .... It will be cool to be able to show him what I'm talking about when I beg him to turn up the color, baby!

Anyway. I just had a really yummy cobb salad with huge chunks of good blue cheese and ripe (they have to be ripe) avocado and rare steak fanned across the top, plus a more than decent white wine, plus a solicitous and appreciative chef who kept coming out to check in on how I was enjoying my meal ... which I was. I also enjoyed the spectacle unfolding at the table next to mine, at which a chocolate cake of momentous proportions, reclining in utterly decadent delirium under a snowy mountain of whipped cream, chopped nuts and cherries, was being deconstructed bite by glorious bite by a silent white-haired man in a blue plaid cowboy shirt and an apricot-haired honey in a fruit punch-colored sweater as she reached across the table with her long-handled spoon .....

I am having fun.

What can I say. I don't get out much. Which is why trips like these are such a pleasure for me, and why, even though it's just a generic chain hotel for harried business-class travelers, I totally LOVE this hotel - love the fact that I know where it is, know the lady at the desk, know what time the spa closes and what is going to be good for breakfast tomorrow .....

It was funny for me to reflect, as I rode the elevator down to dinner, how different an experience Mr. A seems to have when he has to travel for business. He hates it. HATES it. LOATHES it. In capital letters! He's actually at a job site right now - has been all week - and will be next week, as well. I understand why he feels that way, and I sympathize. I'm also, though, just so very grateful that I don't have that particular kind of baggage myself. I'm thoroughly enjoying myself so far, and I still have breakfast to look forward to! Not to mention television in my nicely appointed room - which this time happens to face the way I like it, with the bed to the right of the door instead of the left - plus, last time I was here I got to eavesdrop on one side of a very interesting argument between the woman in the room next to mine and some off-site conversant, in which she made declarations such as, "I ain't you dog, I ain't you ho, I ain't you animal, I ain't you slave ... I ain't play that shit. Now when you comin back to me baby?"

I actually stood on the bed with my ear pressed against the wall, if you must know.

And I think it's entirely possible I may get to hear something interesting through the (unfortunately kind of) thin walls of this place again this time. Although the fact that the most vociferous guests I've seen so far tonight appear to be members of a high-school girls' volleyball (or similar) team does give me pause ....

Also: There's still the press check! I love all that big machinery, and the pages coming off the press, and the free diet Cokes and magazines in the waiting room. And then there's also the plane ride home, and a late dinner somewhere in Berkeley (I'm reading a recent, I guess the only, biography of Alice Waters and Chez Panisse - and feeling inspired to call there for a possible reservation, since it's right on the way home) and then when I get home Mr. A will be there after a week away, and the dogs too - and probably a good breakfast at our usual breakfast place, and maybe a special lunch somewhere on Sunday, to celebrate before he has to leave again, and then - and then - more lemony steamed asparagus and a nice piece of fish or omelet for my sunny, silent, solo Sunday dinner .....

I guess what I'm saying is that I really love my life right now.

And now: up to my room. Because the hotel has HBO, and I've been dying to see that show about psychoanalysis, which just happens to be on tonight.

P.S. The only thing that's lacking (there must always be something, like the flaw left in Native American weavings to let the spirits out, right?) is that I didn't bring the camera, and thus was unable to document the big clump of black hair I saw on the floor outside the restaurant lobby. Which is noteworthy because I swear I saw a similar clump of hair the last time I was here in December, possibly even in the same place! But certainly it couldn't be the same clump. So what exactly is going on here?!

Sunset

If I could post a photo without having to worry about some Internet stalker using it to ascertain my exact whereabouts and come cut my throat in the night, I would love to show you what I'm looking at right out my window right this very minute. It's one of the unexpected benefits of taking down that big old tree that died last year – now I can see incredible sunsets from my back porch.

This one is purple and blue and pink, and now that I'm looking again it's getting some orange and gold around the edges – an especially nice one. So often here, especially in warmer weather, the fog rolls in around 4 or 5 and stays until mid-morning the next day, so our sunsets and sunrises are often nothing much to see. This makes it even nicer when once every great once-in-awhile we get one that bears remembering.

I can see the mountain, too, which I always forget is so close. Although compared to the mountains I lived under in Utah this is barely a hiccup, it's still a mountain – it's THE mountain, in fact – the mountain this whole area is named after. For those who are familiar with it, I'll say it sort of reminds me of Moscow Mountain, the mountain I grew up next to. Not to mention a certain other mountain I love, that starts with "W" and that I will not annoy my two loyal readers by mentioning again so soon.

In the time it's taken me to write this the sky has gone all bruisy blue and purple and gray. The green of the field looks almost too green next to all that darkness – like it might be fake turf instead of real grass.

So. Mr. A is traveling for work for awhile so I've got the house and dogs to myself tonight. I'm eating a nice piece of broiled fish, with the first asparagus of the season, with a Meyer lemon from my little tree squeezed over it. Listening to Iris Dement singing old gospel songs, which Mr. A gets tired of a lot faster than I do (though I have to say he's the most tolerant and good-natured man I've ever known in that regard), and grilling chicken for my lunch tomorrow.

It's nice that I'm having such a pleasant evening because this day got off to kind of a crappy start. There's a person at my office who gets snippy and mean when under stress, and there's been a lot of stress there lately, and that's all I'm going to say about that except to say that I'm really, really trying to use this situation for practice instead of just getting pissed off every time I end up on the receiving end of this person's unkind and unnecessarily caustic remarks.

What I keep coming back to, after my emotions settle back down, is the thought that it must really suck to be that person. A happy person would not act that way. Personally, I would be ashamed of myself if I talked to anyone the way the person talks to me and others – in fact, I never do speak to people that way, ever. This is not to say I never want to – and I have been known to say inflammatory things to discreet and sympathetic friends when I really can't stand it anymore, just in the interest of blowing off steam, but I would never disrespect anyone directly to their face.

So I've been trying to think what would be the most useful way for me to act in this situation, since it's not really an option to speak to the person about it, or just avoid them either, and I don't want to quit my job right now. Everything I can think of to do seems classically co-dependent – basically, instead of taking care of my own needs – because I can't, because I'm not the one with the power here* – I'm looking for ways to reduce their stress and support them in getting their needs met, in hopes they will then be able to relax more and meet some of my needs.

It's funny though – I hear myself making the same excuses for this situation that an abused person makes for their relationship. It's not bad all the time. It's just when the person is stressed. It's also possible I'm at least partly responsible as well – maybe if I were better, it wouldn't keep happening, etc. Kind of messed up! Good to take note, though. And it's not like I'm trying to trick myself into believing it's okay. I know it isn't. But I'm still getting something I need out of the situation, at least for now.

*I know I do have power – if nothing else, I always have the power to leave! I guess it just hasn't gotten that bad yet.

Ay ai ai. How do you spell that? I feel like I'm straying into dangerous territory ... writing about work, and not in a good way. I think I will nip this in the bud and go watch my movie.

Do I dare?

Don't revile me – I can't help it! I have an innate and long-standing weakness for ridiculous shoes. The only question is whether these are ridiculous enough to qualify, or will people think I'm taking them seriously? The shoes I want this year must be funny and fun, comfortable, able to withstand lots of abuse (because I tend to wear the same shoes all season – and these would look better a little dirty anyway, I think) – all while also falling quite a bit short of being true fetish footwear ... because I don't want to freak anyone out too too badly.

I don't really care if platforms are so last year, or the year before that, or if they might even happen to be the current height of fashion. Probably they're not, although I actually haven't checked to see yet what people are supposed to be wearing this year. All I know is that spring is here, or almost, and except for the lipstick and my new green t-shirts I haven't given much thought at all to my transitional uniform. Gotta get right on that!

To those who may think shoes like this are impractical, I will concede that yes, they kind of are. But not prohibitively so. For example, as I told someone the other day, I've recently discovered it is possible to ride a bike in extremely high platform sandals – you just have to move the seat up a few inches. Or you can just change into them when you get there.

What shoes are YOU wearing this spring and summer?

Eleven months later

... I finally take the time to learn how to use my "new" camera. Actually I learned how to use it a couple of months ago, and now I'm at last getting around to uploading and organizing the last year's worth of photos.

So here are a few I liked.


At the very top, of course, well, you know who this is. Click to make it bigger, and then just look how happy-fying he is, with his funny, crooked little doggie smile. With his ears back all eager like that he just melts my heart. This was taken a couple of months ago, when his hair was still short from the de-skunking cut. Now he's all grown out again and curly; even cuter than this, if you can imagine.


And here's the Jeeps in his Christmas sweater. We call him our baby armadillo.


Next, here's a shot of those buckeye trees budding out, which I've been talking about for weeks – I almost missed them this year because they opened up so much earlier than usual. Probably a couple of weeks earlier. They're beautiful, though, right? When the whole tree is covered with them it looks like a ginormous candelabra covered with tiny jewel-green flames. One of my favorite sights of the springtime.


And finally, another much-loved springtime sight: little pink blossoms on a tree I have declared "the cutest tree in town." I ride past it every day and keep waiting for someone to cut it down, because it's just a tiny little tree right in the middle of some other trees, and it clearly was not planted there but sprang up on its own from a seed dropped by a bird, most likely ... and you really hardly notice it at all most of the year, until spring comes again and suddenly it's covered with flowers for about three weeks, and you see that the shape of this particular little tree is just the most graceful, naturally asymmetrical and yet perfectly-balanced shape you could imagine. And the flowers are lovely.

So now that I'm online with the camera and high-speed access, I'm wanting to start posting a lot more photos. Sometimes I think my life is too boring to interest anyone but me ... I just ride back and forth all day, the same three miles, over and over and over ... but there's a lot to see in those three little miles, and sometimes I even go other places, too. So stay tuned.

Meanwhile, spring has definitely arrived. I don't know why I'm sitting here in front of the computer ... it's the first day of Daylight Savings, which means I really should be outside fooling around with plants and digging in the dirt, or possibly taking a really long bike ride someplace off my usual beaten path. Maybe I'll go do that right now.

The stinkier the better

I went to this cheese thing the other night. Usually I don't like this type of event – just a bunch of people drinking and schmoozing and stroking each other's egos under the guise of "business development" – but this one was practically right next to my office, and someone I work with specially invited and even encouraged me to go, and I thought I might as well get a little something to eat before riding home ... plus, free cheese.

So I walked in and started scanning the room for the person who'd sort of browbeaten me into going. I spotted him across the crowded courtyard and started walking over ... and then suddenly, after he'd already seen me and it was too late to shrink back into the shrubbery and disappear, I saw what I hadn't seen before: he was standing right next to someone I really did not want to see. Or be seen by. Or talk to. Or have anything to do with.

Not that I hate or even necessarily dislike this person. It's just ... it's someone I know to be something of a train wreck and a drama queen of monumental proportions, and it makes me anxious to the point of nausea to be around this person, and I just would rather not put myself through that, especially at an event that is supposed to be fun.

But there was no way out so I walked the rest of the way over, all the while rummaging around in my emotional toolbox for that rigid smile I wrote about the other day – the grin – which really does come in handy sometimes, even though I hate the insincerity of it. My mind was going over the phrases people use in social situations like this: "Oh, HI! So great to SEE you!" Hug hug, kiss kiss. Blech.

Then I had a mini-epiphany, brought on, I think, by my analysis the other day of that pasted-on mask of a grin. Why do I feel like I have to say something I don't mean, just to be social? Because the truth was, it was NOT great to see that person. It kind of sucked to see them. And while I didn't see any need to show hostility or even just ignore the person, I also didn't want to soil my own integrity or insult the other person (even a person I don't really care to be around) by saying something that is not true.

What dawned on me in that moment was that there are a million things I could say that would be true, and cordial, and even friendly and open, without creating a false impression of how I feel about the person – which really has nothing to do with the situation, I suddenly realized.

So I said hi to my friend, and then to the other person I said, "Wow, there are so many people here! Looks like it's going to be a great event."

It seems like a small thing, but it felt really good to me to be able to say something appropriately social without telling a lie or trying to act like I felt some way I don't really feel. It all falls under the category of "mindful speech," which, if you'll recall, is one of my spring practice principles this year.

That one seems to be going okay. It's really helpful to just focus on one or two things at a time, with the intention of forming a new habit. In forty days (plus weekends, which in the traditional observance of Lent do not count for some reason) a new behavior can really become ingrained in (into?) your character.

The cheese was amazing, too, I feel compelled to mention. Stink - KEE. Because this was an industry event there were cheesemakers there from all over the world, and I got to taste some weird delicious cheeses that are no longer available here due to new-ish restrictions on imports. My favorite though was not any of the raw-milk stuff but some local runny, stinky, dark yellow brie-type cheese that was so good it made my cheeks ache, made me understand why dogs roll in things that smell irresistibly delicious to them – I wanted to grab big sticky handfuls of it and smear it through my hair and down the front of my sweater. Instead I just ate way too much of it, chased by a two-ounce pour of some really nice wine and about a half-cup of hot coffee, and rode home through the twilight humming over and over and over again, a little obsessively if you must know, that line from a certain Queen song: "guaranteed to blow your mind ... guaranteed to blow your mind ... guaranteed to blow your mind ...."

Living without cheese would definitely be harder for me than living without sugar. That part is going okay too. It's harder this time than it ever has been before though, possibly because this time I'm allowing myself to consider the possibility that I might not, as I have always done before, go back to eating sugar again after the spring practice period is over. Not that I think I would ever just completely cut myself off from all sugar forever. A little chocolate every now and then, a cookie with my tea, pumpkin pie at Christmas and of course ice cream – I'm already slightly drooling over the first bite of ice cream I'm going to have after all this is over (Haagen Dazs makes this banana split ice cream that I just can't stop thinking about lately, even though bananas are not my favorite ... probably it's the integrated chocolate sauce and cherry that are making me crazy).

For now though and until Easter, I'm doing good. When I have an intense craving, I'm mostly able to remember to use it instructively, as an opportunity to examine the nature of craving, instead of taking it seriously as a real "need" that "must" be "satisfied" by giving myself the thing I'm craving.

What must it be like for people who really are starving? If I feel this desperate about a little bowl of ice cream, how would I be affected if I were one of the countless people in the world who actually have No Food At All? If nothing else, it gives me a little more compassion for people who act in ways I find incomprehensible ... who knows what might be driving them to do the things they do? Desire is powerful. More than that, the belief that desire must be acted upon.

I can't say I'm enjoying going without sugar, exactly, but it does feel good to be reminded that even in the face of intense emotion and desire, I still have the power to make choices about my own behavior.

At least I hope I do. Mr. A and I have been having a conversation lately about free will vs. hormonal or genetic imperatives ... Do we really have the power to choose how we behave? I know there's such a thing as impulse control disorders, or at least I've heard of them. OCD, for example. But like in the example of someone who's an addict – yeah, maybe they do feel much more strongly compelled than the average person to use their drug, but does that really mean they "can't" NOT use it?

Thus we see how a delightfully light-hearted and/or banal wine and cheese reception can devolve into a heavy and utterly humorless discussion of Free Will: Does it or does it not exist? Which is not all that different from how wine and cheese receptions often turn out anyway, if you stick around til they're putting up the folding chairs and tables, now that I think of it.

Not that cute

Not when they're crawling in your walls. I sat down just now to book a flight for a press check in couple of weeks and heard – hear, am hearing at this moment – the sound of tiny paws scratching inside the wall right next to me. Damn.

Just yesterday we were talking with a neighbor about the various issues that come up when you live out here with all the creatures – skunks, coyotes, raccoons, rats – and she remarked that it's been awhile since everyone had all those rats a few years ago. We all agreed it had been a huge relief when that infestation finally ended. And now this.

Well, maybe it's not another infestation. Maybe it's just a sign of spring – new baby animals and all. Everything is blooming like crazy right now, or getting ready to. Our peach tree is covered in the most beautiful bright pink flowers, and one of the roads I ride to work on is lined with plum and almond trees that have been showering me with sweet pink and white petals every morning.

Even after living here for almost 14 years, I still haven't gotten used to it arriving so early in the year. Just when fall seems to be turning into winter, it's like the world skips ahead several months and I find myself suddenly in springtime again. I know that's how it works here, but it still feels like a surprise every time.

We've been getting a lot done in the yard lately, laying the groundwork for some bigger projects that will be completed gradually over the next few years. I just finished a big project at work so my schedule there should be back to the new normal again starting tomorrow – basically, a four-day work week now instead of five, which is turning out to be exactly perfect for the way I like to work.

The dogs are good, or as good as can be expected, which I guess maybe is not as good as I would like. Actually, Tater is fine; it's the Jeeps who's not doing so well. Today he fell down at least 20 times – it seemed like every time I turned around he was on the ground again – and could not get back up without help, not even one time. He's been falling for awhile, but today it felt different. Usually he either manages to haul himself up somehow on his own, or patiently lies there until one of us helps him. Today for the first time I got the distinct feeling that he was really hurting, and that he's ... well, it felt like he's getting tired of living like this. He just seems worn out.

Mr. A and I are both traveling for work in the next few weeks and I don't know what we're going to do with him on the one day when we're both away at the same time. Usually we just have the sitter in twice a day, but I don't feel safe leaving him alone for that much time in his present condition. It's possible we may be able to get someone to actually come stay at the house that night.

His appetite is still good and he still wants to go with us on walks, though I'm starting to think that might not be such a good idea anymore. Even a walk to the mailbox and back seems to exhaust him. On the other hand, I don't want him to feel rejected or excluded from the activities he enjoys the most, if he still wants to do them. I guess if he ever stops trying to come with us, we'll know he's done having fun. Until then I'll just plan on continuing to accommodate him as well as I can for as long as he's here.

He's never been the most affectionate or companionable dog – that's more Tater's role – but the more attention he needs just to get through the day, the more I get used to thinking of him, trying to anticipate what he might need, looking for him whenever I enter or leave a room, wondering whether he's warm enough, hoping he doesn't fall when we're not there to help him get back up again .... It's sure going to feel strange when he finally isn't here anymore.