Time to Rest

When all is going as it should do you start looking for trouble?

I do. Well I used to and it's a habit I'm trying very hard to break. It takes some effort to say, "You know, I'm allowed to have easy. It's going to get hard in a minute so take the break while you can."

But as soon as I exhale if I'm not careful I start finding new things to do. I'm resisting it. It's hard, but I am.

I have Ms Black getting all coachy which is amazing and seems like the perfect fit for her. I'm so stoked to see what her model will look like and how freaking cool it will all come to be. I assure you it will be amazing because she has that touch.

But the my take home message is "what are you waiting on?" And really the answer is graduation in 5 weeks, huge surgery and weeks of recovery and then the plan to write as have it established. The coaching gig for me will come later...but I've the itch.

Also, I have people coming into my office, closing the door, asking me if they can be my test customers (read free advice) and if I can help them figure out what to do with their lives, husbands, and jobs. So the word's out that I've got the skills. I just don't have the structure or the time to commit.

It's not time, it's not time, it's not time.

Do you like the mantra?

So I'm trying to rest on easy. School work is low key right now. It's stuff that I love. Succession Planning. Oh, planning. Planning excites me. Corporate planning and skill building gives me shivers of delight. So I exaggerate, but still it's the stuff I love way more than say accounting.

There's all kinds of incredible things and happy off beat stuff happening right now. There are connections that are wild which I can't even put words to. I'm at a place where I just kind of want to receive instead of produce.

That is new.

That my friends is an epiffy-rockin-ee.

Today I decided I was finished being ill. I decided last night actually. And I had pretty much turned the corner so it’s not like I didn’t have logic on my side.

I set my alarm clock to get up early enough to do Shiva Nata take a shower, wake the girl child, pack lunches and get off to school and work for the day. When it went off I debated hitting snooze, but sat on the edge of the bed and got moving.

It went amazingly smoothly. I didn’t touch it last week, so I was surprised and a little annoyed. I hadn’t planned on spending much time doing it and it looked as if I was going to have to linger with it until it got hard. But no, I love the DVD feature to hop ahead. So I did and I started messing up and all was right with the world.

Namaste and all that good stuff

The girl child was easy to deal with this morning, which is a crap shoot.

The lights were all green on the way to work.

I saw a good friend on my way in and we chatted.

People were delightful and said good morning.

My birthday earring has been found

It will be returned. This is huge people. I’m not a thing person and the loss of this earring reestablished why that’s a healthy way to be, but I’m happy to have it back anyway. I swore the GF to only buying me cheap jewelry from here on out. Well aside from wanting The Ring. I share the princess fantasy with my peers, don’t judge.

I got positive feedback on my resume.

I applied for a fancy job which I am more than qualified to do. I feel good about this mainly because of the all the green lights this morning.

I’ve asked a well respected professor whom I bicycle with to be a reference for me and she said she’d be delighted.

I’ve worked out and my abs are hurting in a good way.

Oh and there’s so much more

I’ve got serious ideas about how the me and my obesity illness can coexist in my body. There are thoughts on shared imagery and fantasy of fat people and then some differences in eating disorders. There are thoughts on the celebrity of going form 350 to 150 (that’s pounds) and how people are swarming me again. And that’s quite a reach, calling myself a celebrity and them swarming, but it feels like that so I’m using it.

Also, I found some rocking Reggaeton on the iPod during the workout. Don’t you love when you find something you forgot you had?

It’s really been a good 8 hours so far.

My daughter, a pain in the butt.

My butt hurts.

Like really I have a pulled muscle in my left butt cheek. It is from spinning.

I'm sick, with the flu, and when that starts I get insane like I'm going to work out like an idiot and sweat out the the illness. I don't even know if I'm working out harder, I know I'm sweating profusely but that could be from a fever. I could be delirious thinking I'm Lance freaking Armstrong on a spin bike while in reality I barely turn over the pedals. But my body hurts so yeah, I probably over did it a little.

It doesn't help, I'm still sick. If you were in class with me you are probably are starting to feel a little scratch in the back of your throat. It's hot, we were breathing hard, you know it's just a germ's incubating dream.

My nose hurts now too from too much blowing and I'm miserable

My poor little girl found my last little nerve as we walked through the grocery store and she jumped all over it, again and again and again. I positioned her. You know what I mean, I kind of put her in a spot, not roughly, but I was done using my words because they weren't connecting. And the kid, who has never been hit ever, well not by me, I'm not vouching for kids on the play ground, she said, "Don't punch me!"

What?

I looked around frightened someone might have thought me an abuser, we were alone, I then was aghast. "Who punches you?"

"You do."

"You are out of your freaking mind."

I don't hit her but I will call her a liar or apparently tell her she's crazy. I do threaten to beat her, which isn't funny if you've ever been beaten but she typically counters with, "Why would you want to hurt my body?"

Answering, "to make you listen to me" or "to teach you a lesson" just doesn't roll off the tongue when you've just been reminded that hitting someone actually hurts their body. So that just ends the mess.

All of this is just weighing on me. Being sick, having a literal pain in the ass and the girl-child claiming abuse at my hands, oh and a paper that feels awkward due tomorrow, on a day I just want to do other things.

Well one other thing.

I found a position I want to apply for. It's going to take some in depth research. I'm capable of doing the job, but I've got to get up to speed on the agency's mission, history, board of directors, etc. You know stuff to be jazzed (how's that for some old school lingo) about. I expect I need to spend a solid 8-10 hours learning. And that stokes my fire, well normally it would but I want to nap. Really I want 9pm to arrive so I can go to bed.

Oh and the position, which I don't want to talk about too much for putting a whammy on it, is a Directorship which is quite a jump from Lunch Lady. I'm confident, but there are some fears of being an impostor. I know I'm dismissing all the transformations and not looking at the updated version, Julianna 4.0. It's fine I'll muster through it. Just now, I'm not feeling wonderful.

Fiddle Sticks and Other Grumblings

Managing to get stuff done while I'm in a fog always surprises me.

I feel like I'm in a fog most of the time. I get stuff done too, almost like auto pilot. Almost. If I just wasn't aware of the fact that something is missing it would be perfect.

I am one of those people who starts the day with a to do list and I also look back at the end of a day or a weekend to say, this is what I accomplished this is what I missed. I really try to look back over the day with an appreciation, not a whip. Most times I find I'm doing just fine.

But not exceptional.

It was easier when I didn't realize exceptional was an option. It was easier when survival was the key objective. Now that's covered. I went from survival to learning how to learn. Which has it's benefits and it will serve me for the rest of my life. It really did come to a surprise to me that there were institutions and lives spent in the creation of passing on learning. (That's another post.)

Now it's creation time.

What?

It's not a matter of what to create. That would be a revenue stream that has me doing what I love in a non icky way, which is helping people realize their potential. I want to help individuals and groups, alone and together. I want to write, I want to speak, I want to be valued, and I want to perform. (Not artistic actor - perform, but surpass benchmarks and set new standards - perform.)

And it's not a matter of having the confidence. One might ask, "Julianna, what makes you think you can do that?" and the answer is "because I can" and "because I do".

S0 what is the matter?

Oh, the matter would be how to get from my utter and complete reliance on a stable paycheck and cushy state benefits to pulling it off.

A girl needs a plan. And that's what I'm good at doing, making plans that is. Closing the gaps between where one is and where one wants to be. I'm good at the execution part too. But I'm not good at the waiting part.

I need to wait.

There are things to do between now and then, so waiting won't be entirely in vain, but oh, oh, oh I want it all and a I want it now.

Alas, I'm just whiny and discontented. I'll get it all, just not right this very moment. I'm sure there's some learning I need to do before it happens anyway. But fiddle sticks and other grumblings.

Bernie and Katrina

Okay, I don't want to pretend like I'm suffering. I know people who are and I follow the news, people are hurting.

And it's not because I'm so affluent that I'm beyond all the stuff that happens to the little people. Actually it's quite the contrary. Well not exclusively contrary.

I'm not scraping by poor. But I used to be.

I was a poor 20 year old like many kids sent out on their own, but I was also brought up city-white-poor. It's a lot like city-black-poor, or country-white-poor. Really, I easily and accurately call myself a child who grew up in a family of the working poor. Race and place and irrelevant. We have our ways of dealing with and being dealt with by society.

I continued the legacy, except I was exposed to academia and brain shaping thoughts from the outside, not by actually attending college. I knew it sucked to be me economically and I knew why.

Vegetarian Restaurants and People Who Work at Them

I worked in a vegetarian kitchen for over a decade which employed many earnest young teaching assistants looking to supplement their income by waiting tables or literally slinging veggie hash.* You know the types, the kind that are new to teaching and are on fire with theory? Well bless their poopy little hearts, I was exposed to all kinds of gooey, chewy academic concepts. Of course most of the kids (I say that but I was about the same age, well for the first half of my tenure there) were liberal arts folks. It was a vegetarian restaurant, after all.

Privilege was a topic of conversation often. I had a knock down drag out once justifying the fact that I bought my house, that I was privileged. This from a recent college graduate who thought having her parents pay for her education was a inalienable right. And while home owning is certainly a privilege and I'm grateful for the opportunity, I've scraped to have it.

And I've continued to scrape.

It got better for a heart beat then I went through a separation, or divorce, or whatever you call it when gay people split. But I went from living in one house, two incomes, and three people. To living in one house, one income and me and a half of a child, or a child half the time.

My goal was to save my house.

I worked three jobs and cut out everything. No internet, no cable, no cell phone, little money for groceries, rice and beans, you know the drill. The working poor. Actually, as I see it, when you can't work another hour in the day and you still debate which bills you will not pay that month. You are the working poor.

It has gotten better again. But I'm not part of the investor class, nor are my parents and siblings.
Apparently they're getting beat to hell right now. No, I'm not snickering. I didn't even know they had a name for them until I was polled this past election season and answered "no" to that question.

Today on NPR they were talking about those simple folk who got duped by Bernie Madoff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff and I know it stinks to lose your life savings but the sympathy pouring out my radio reminded me of the sympathy for folks who actually LOST EVERYTHING with Katrina. And as the journalist said, "Mrs so and so is able to stay in her house but she doesn't have money to give her grown children." I thought give me a break. There are people who never had it to give to their kids. There are people who lost what bits they had and are still suffering the after affects.

So rock on lower middle class.

What a good place to be. I grew up in a way where I had to learn to value myself and those around me for who we were, not by our possessions, or we'd never have gotten out of bed. And you know that pile of money that never got saved? Well there's no one lined up trying to take it from me either.

And, Katrina sufferers, I'm still sorry.

*And no, I won't share the recipe. I've gotten away from recipe sharing and there are many resources out there for that.

Arbitrary Passwords and Brazil

I really should be writing a paper right now about leadership’s role during project management cycle.

No wonder I’m distractible. Snooze.

I’m nearly finished with school so you’d think I’d keep doing the good until I was finished. I probably will, but right now at this very moment I want to share a chuckle and some other arbitrary stuff.

“Random” would have been a perfectly acceptable word for arbitrary, but I’m on a one woman crusade to eradicate it from the current lexicon. Cats and Dolls, it’s on its way to being one of those phrases, you know the kind that absolutely dates you. Whatev.

Passwords as humor

Recently, I had to call tech support for my AT&T internet service. When the fella asked me what my old password was I wished it was something super nasty. I can’t even type some of my favorite nastinesses here. I’m scared for my precious reputation. But somewhere along the way I read something funny about setting up horribly inappropriate passwords just so when you are in such a situation you can make the call center worker either laugh or die of embarrassment. Regardless, you’ll have impacted their day in a memorable way. Call center workers can use some memorable impact.

I suppose having “urvoiceizsexy” would be funny too and less vulgar. Or “imnakednow” could cause a stir.

My unfounded love of all things Brazilian

I’m not talking about different depilatory styles here people. I’m talking about that South American country. I'm falling in love with country for no real reason, aside from it looks like an amazing place and the music speaks to my heart. And by music I mean traditional and contemporary. I'm on a kick.

I found a native Brazilian woman living in my midst and I’m going to use her to learn Portuguese. She doesn’t know it yet but I will charm her with my wit and baked goods and promises of free child care if she’ll talk to me. What an offer!

I love learning languages and what better language than Portuguese? You ask why, I ask why not. The point is to collect languages because I grew up in a house where people were not native English speakers. They spoke English to each other, but it was their secondary or tertiary language. I learned ASL easily (sort of, in a jacked up fashion, but it works for me and my needs) because my language acquisition receptors are wired like a kid who was exposed to languages early. Go figure. It was German and Hungarian, btw.

Happy Endings

I was struggling to find resources to pay for my extensive and painful plastic surgery I really want to have.

At one point in the conversation yesterday I was discussing with the GF that I do give decent messages. I’m not averse to giving a happy ending either (I actually am, and she’s really the only “client” I’d want-we keep it interesting) if it would put more cash in my pocket.

But fortunately after some finagling, and a tax return later I think I can manage to have surgery, buy groceries and keep the electricity on in the house. That’s a happy ending indeed.

Okay, back to project management. Remind me to tell you about my resume exercise project I did with the help of a good friend. I’m more awesome than I originally thought I was. Perhaps really I’m just more insufferable.

Peace my Lovelies

Thumb Sucking Fear

Plastic surgery is only a few weeks away. Well so is graduation.

Job hunting in earnest isn’t that far off either.

Yikes

I’ve been tasked with the challenge to create a resume. I need to do it. I’ve been working on it. I need to work more on it. I’ve got to brainstorm some ideas too. I think I might ask some of my nearest and dearests to help me flesh out ideas, flesh out ways to put into words the fabulosity which is me.

I’m a group think is better than not a group think kind of girl. And my fabulousness is hard to quantify in a way that will make me stand out for said new career.

Isn’t that funny? New career? I don’t even know where I want to point myself for this new career. It’s hard to craft a resume to a generic audience, but necessary. It’s even harder to hone my awesomeness in a pointed way to the job which I don’t know exists which I should be able to say, I’m the best candidate ever because, xyz. There’s some frustration with that.

Frustrations keep me from digging in deeply and getting to core of things as quickly as I’d like. I suppose they wouldn’t be frustrations otherwise huh?

I wish I knew some HR types, well I suppose I do. And I know there are templates out there for this kind of thing, but I’m a build ideas up from the ground kind of girl. I do see the value in redesigning the wheel. Well sometimes.

And this is one of those times.

I started this talking about surgery.

It’s the plastic kind. I want to make a comment about recycling plastic, but can’t, I’m not having fun thinking about the surgery.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m 175 pounds lighter than I once was. I have this curious looking stomach that needs to be removed. The surgery is going to be long and scary. The recovery is going to be long and painful. I’m not so vain as to want to do long, scary and painful just to look better. This is a means to moving more freely and happily. This literal shedding is important.

Ew, ew, ew. I think I’m having an epiphany or recognizing stuck. I want to pretend I’m not doing this for vanity reasons, but that’s a big piece of it too. I think I need to sit with that and make that okay.

Damn, now I have to work on that.

About graduation or completing the degree; I’m done at the end of March, I walk in May.

That’s scaring me too. I seem to be scared all over the place. Maybe I need a sanctuary. But having the free time not doing school work is worrisome for me. You know they say idle hands to the Devil’s work. Oh the carnage I could commit. I’m pretty effective at getting stuff done.

I know, make my own plans, not the Devil’s or anyone else’s and fill the time doing things that propel me forward. It’s just it is change. And change is hard. And I’m changing all over the place.

And I want to curl up in a ball, suck my thumb and stay in bed until mid June. That will be okay, right?

No? Okay.

Time to enlist the friends; they make me feel better.