Nothing Much

I am just home from a morning walk around the neighborhood. It's a beautiful, cool fall day. The leaves are yellow and the grass is surprisingly really, really green. I started heading east, mostly because I had to drop my Netflix in the mailbox on the way. And I noticed that the sun was warm on my face. It was different than heat . . . the total body heat of taking that same walk only months ago. I was cool, the breeze was cool, but the sun on my face was warm. And that made me think about South Pole, where the sun is never warm. It's up all the time, but it doesn't warm your skin. The power of the deep cold cancels it out.

When I started my walk there was no one around. Not even cars moving on the street. And it felt strange and quiet and early, even though it's 10 in the morning. As I looped around, though, I found where all the people were . . . peewee football games. Four different ones were going in the park. Skinny blond mom's standing in groups. Sullen older siblings hunched way down in their lawn chairs. Thick, square headed Dad's yelling instructions from under their oversized football jerseys and ball caps. 100,000 SUV's in the parking lot.

Who would ever let those tiny little guys play football?

This morning I am dull and numb. I should be doing all kinds of fretting and stewing and mostly I am able to stare at the Facebook and hope that something changes. That's about it. I can't seem to even listen to the NPR rattling on in the background. Dull and numb and lacking any motivation.

In a week I will be leaving and I know that traveling and opening and enduring will take all the energy I have. Today I just want to sit in front of the computer and stare. Meanwhile my clothes are all over the floor of the bedroom, waiting to be wadded up and stuffed in every corner of my bags. I have shopping to do, letters to write. Check books to balance.

Bha.

I think I'll stare instead.

Sexier Than Shit

What is it about LL Cool J?

I'm the type of guy . . .

And Sonic Youth?

Kool Thing . . . sitting with a kitty . . . .

I'm transported.

Then and Now and Then and This . . . Again

One of the beauties, and certainly one of the horrors, of Facebook is that it can suddenly reflect your past right at you -- over coffee.

Boom.

They come back and find you . . . "Kenyon Beth? Oh my GOD!" and then suddenly waves of it wash up and there is LW (who is now LR) and her adoring Dr. Husband and two lovely children. She lives in NY and runs their Planned Parenthood. She's still as beautiful as she was when she was 20. And she's done everything right. Or so it seems.

And of course she enthusiastically wants to know about me . . .

And I feel really strange writing it.

"I was a secretary and performed with a local improv group that took itself too seriously. Then I was so poor I sold everything and worked in Antarctica. Because the party party lifestyle and the fact that I didn't have to deal with "real life" in America was so great -- I stayed there and hid for years. Now I'm half back, but ruined forever. I no longer believe in the healing magic of love and I think kids just make you old too soon and suck up all your money. I drink too much, never bathe, and hang out with ruffians who hunt with bows, drive huge trucks, and get into bar fights."

Whooo hooo.

And suddenly I wonder . . . was I just fooling myself way back then? Was I always THIS, and just pretending to be Then?

I always sort of felt out of water most of the time I was in college . . .

Or was I wholly me Then as well, and just evolved into This? Did Then provide the blocks for This?

Or is THIS totally not who I am, and somehow I was blown off the path of what I always should have been, and ruined everything forever?

Have I failed? Miserably?

Or have I just walked a path that doesn't look normal when viewed with Then's eyes, but seems really cool and great and happy-making Now?

Have you noticed this theme before? I certainly have . . . since I've been writing about it for what seems like years. I'm hoping it's just about being in that middle age . . . I'm old enough to look back and have a past with some significance -- and I'm positioning myself for the next half -- trying to make it all seem connected somehow.

My sister is working on a project about narrative and how we try to force our lives into one.

Maybe that's just what's plaguing me . . .

The Power of American Freedom

Standing in the middle of a storm, triumphantly waving an American flag at a hurricane has to be one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.

Do you actually think that the hurricane gives a shit?

The Coming Fall

Today the weather is overcast and cold. Only 54F when I was driving home from my parents' house.

Delightful!

The wet, cold smell in the air makes me think of Christchurch.

Almost time to start the season anew!

Most Offensive Thing Said by a McCain Supporter

"Finally . . . a vice president you can jack off to."

What the fuck is that?

Family Reunion Re-Set

I just got back from a family reunion. We have them every two years and I always meet them with a myriad of different emotions. They can be challenging. There are never enough beds or bed rooms and single members of the family are left to curl up on couches and on the floor in alcoves. I never get enough sleep. We have some challenging personalities as well. Sometimes you get allergic to one or the other. It's just natural in a group so large. And, then there's the grief. With every coming together, we must remember those who are no longer with us. And we pay tribute, because that's what we do. And it's good, but sad, too.

The best part of these reunions is how well I get re-set. Like a clock to the atomic. For two years, I go about my life and allow other influences and try on other perspectives and get swayed and convinced. And when I come back to my family -- and get so immersed -- there is no way to escape my center, the core of myself. The compass that points true north.

These people combined can be nothing other than what we are. The memory is too long. You can dye your hair, or take up smoking, or cop a huge attitude, or bring yet another wife along, and the group remains. Centered. Solid. Flexible, forgiving and forever what it was and will be.

At the core of this group is the core of me. And regrouping every two years re-centers my middle. What seemed so important that it was making me sick the night before I left, now doesn't matter a bit. Values are regained and remembered. A path forward now seems so clearly possible.

I am so thankful for these wonderful people.

Another Feminism

Front Line Leadership Lady said a curious thing during class.

We were doing a communication exercise where we had a murder mystery to solve. We all had cards with bits of information on them, and we had to tell each other what our cards said and piece the story together. There were different characters -- all who had motive or suspicious behavior. We had to determine who was the real killer.

And as we all came together to talk about our conclusions, it became obvious that one woman character was meant to distract us from the true killer. And the Front Line Leadership Lady, voicing how we all were thinking, said:

"Why is she important? She's a Miss, not a Mrs!"

And this stuck me as so offensive. Just because she's not married, she's unimportant?

Whooo dang.

Minutes before, in a smaller, break-away group were we were to brainstorm something, my comments were made fun of by a male Director and dismissed. He shut me down. A male group mate restated my suggestion. When it was said again, the male Director wrote it down on the brain storming list.

I think it might be time for another Feminism. We had the first good go-round, and then the neo-Feminists and the post-Feminists, but I think we might need another little dose of it, to remember. Some tri-Feminist movement. Or, what? What could it be called?

Maybe it's just me . . . noticing again because my situation has changed so completely at work. Maybe I'm just anticipating past wrongs resurfacing and needn't be so over-sensitive.

But when you really start listening with your Feminism on . . . you too will hear it. Everywhere.

Whooo dang.

On Excellence

I have been thinking about excellence lately. At work, we are going through a thousand and one changes, and it's been really stressful. This week I exploded all over my boss man. He was coming at a problem in a way that totally offended me . . . because it wasn't assuming excellence in all we do. It took me most of the morning to figure out why I bit his head off. But it was because he was directing me to be less than perfect and it infuriated me. When we eventually sat down and talked about it, I voiced this to him. He said his loyalty was to "you and Paul and the team, and I wanted to protect you from all this."

Protect us? From doing our job?

Yep. That's what it came down to. It wasn't what he meant to do. He was worried and just didn't want to overburden us. But what he didn't realize is that excellence -- Excellence -- is a huge part of how I do my job. If I didn't have Excellence to do . . . then what would be the point?

In a front line leadership course I took before vacation, the teacher was talking about performance evaluations and asked why everyone thinks a meets is a bad grade. She couldn't figure out where that came from. "Where does that COME from?" Although she didn't hear me, I said "High school." Big duh on that one, Lady. Meets is a C in high school. And I was never, and will never be, a C student. Thank you very much.

If we didn't have perfection to strive towards, what would we be doing? Isn't it perfection, excellence and achievement that drives human kind forward? If we just wanted to breed and jet ski, then where would we be? The only reason to live is to continue to strive to be Great. To do everything we do, as best as we can do it. To be more better. And this isn't about being the Best in the World (although that still underpins a lot), it's about doing what I do completely. To the best of my ability.

Isn't that a great phrase? To the best of my ability.

Always and completely.

Invisible Spears of Love

You know what's not true? It's this . . .

"If I feel this sure, it MUST be true."

That's just not true.

Today I have been thinking a lot about love feelings . . . or lust feelings . . . or that absolute, crippling pain you get just under your heart when someone catches your fancy. And you think to yourself, if I'm feeling it this deeply, if it's making me this sick and light headed and distracted, it must be true! Because certainly I wouldn't feel sick if there weren't these little rays of love shooting into me from him. Right?

But you know . . . it ain't true.

Little rays of love between you don't exist.

I can make myself sick thinking about someone, seeing them walk across a room, sitting near them. I can make that horrible, piercing pain appear under my heart when I take a fancy. And it is so painful and so convincing and comes so absolutely out of the blue, that I convince myself it must be some phenomenon. Some physical thing happening to grab hold of me so completely.

But it ain't true.

I must always remind myself to fall back to the basics . . . if you have to ask, it isn't on.

Luckily, this time, I didn't ask.

And isn't timing something? Tomorrow, I'm leaving for a long vacation. And today I got confirmation that the wing-span beauty from the meeting is dating someone else in the office. Aren't they adorable? And today I found out that my girl friend recently took up with a guy who, a million years ago, took his name tag from his parka and sent it to me as a remembrance. He's now married. But, I guess, not that happily so. She's torn up, blaming him . . . but she slept with her married friend. I have little sympathy . . . but I still feel sad, none the less. Sure, I don't want to be sleeping with my married friend. But I would have liked a little follow-through on the whole name tag thing, a million years ago.

Ah me. What isn't to be, doesn't become. It doesn't manifest. Little signs, like kissing feet, and getting nervous, and sending name tags, just don't mean dick.

When it's on, it's all the way on. And you'll know it. Right?

Because there aren't little rays of love. And there isn't physical magic. And I can't sense another's secret feelings from across town.

There are only real actions, real questions, and real declarations.

And that's it.

No Dramatic Endings

Sometimes I wish life was full of dramatic endings.

If it were . . . tomorrow . . . I would get up early and exercise. The scotch I'm drinking wouldn't have left a hang over. I would write my morning pages, but I wouldn't pack a lunch.

I would leave on time and stop at the muffin store and buy one, over sized, ridiculous blueberry muffin.

I would walk into work, sunglasses on -- even though the overhead lights are kept off until 7:30. I would be holding my keys and clicking the switch-key in and out with the button. I would have left my purse in the car . . . and I would walk up to Dave and I would give him the muffin. I would set it on his desk. Then I would crouch down, holding his hand, and I would look him in the eye. And he and I would know what they have done.

Without dialogue.

And I would kiss him long and tenderly on the cheek. And I would mean it. Even in light of all his goofiness, they should have chosen him. And then I would walk back out the door.

And the credits would roll and some pop of the moment band would twang into their top 40 ballad, full of urgency.

Ah, me.

But that's not what will happen tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will get up and take a shower. I'll wash my hair and probably dry it. I'll put on something appropriate and I'll make a lunch. I'll drive the speed limit to work and park next to the super hot blue Mustang . . . just like I always do.

I'll go in and check my email.

I'll drink my coffee.

And then I'll go to the audit and present the population . . . like a good little soldier.

And meanwhile, Dave will tell everyone they hired a different white guy. Some Air Force fucker who used to sell arms to foreign nations. Named Marble. And everyone will wail and gnash their teeth. People from other divisions will come by, aghast, and ask me "What are you gonna DOOOOOOOO?" And I'll smile and act professional and be calm and dismissive and eventually they will go away.

Despite myself, I'll take the long view. I'll talk about loyalty to the Program and professionalism. I'll talk about keeping it upright. I'll quote Martin and his disaster movie.

And I'll fear my mortgage. And because of it, I will continue to believe that there might be a platinum year . . . ahead . . . somewhere.

One more golf playing white guy that, if I googled correctly, looks just the same.

And they all look just the same . . .

In a Meeting

I have been attending meetings once a week about a project that isn't ours, but will effect us. Because it's a meeting in which I generally don't participate, but mostly observe, I sit along the wall in a corner and listen. At the table sits a very tall, lanky man. A man I have known for years and periodically think is attractive. For two weeks, this man has been completely distracting.

He comes into the room urgently, finds a place near me at the table and sits down. He leans far back in the chair, making room for his long, thin legs. He crosses them and shifts sideways.

As we listen to the starfish in the center of the table, he rolls back and whispers questions in my ear. Close. Quiet. More close and quiet than he needs to be, really. His breath is hot and stale against my neck. He rolls back towards the table, re-crosses his legs, and puts his chin in his left hand. I study the tiny curls in the back of his head, each with one gray hair. A gentle line of silver.

He shifts slightly and the gather in the back of his green button shirt gives a little. His shoulders spread. Oh, holy heaven.

He rolls back again, reaching for a timeline I have on the table next to me. His hand comes up short, so I help, gliding the page slowly over his outstretched hand and down his long arm.

The wing span. Oh God, the long, strong wing span of this man makes the starfish go quiet and the others disappear. As they all yap on, I drift away and am suddenly wrapped up in that wing span, nose and mouth climbing from collar bone, up the long neck to his jaw. I am held and encompassed inside those enormous arms, my legs curled against him in the chair. His soft lips and gentle whiskers kiss my eyes. I slide my arms around him and feel the epic expanse of his strong back.

He smells of soap and coffee.

I have often said grown-ups need giants. Big people who can wrap us up in their arms and shelter us.

This man seems that big. That calm. That smart.

And he's sexier than hell in a meeting.

Conversation with Martin

Martin: "How's Beth?"

Beth: "I don't like it here anymore."

Martin: "No! It's fun."

Beth: "Everyone is miserable."

Martin: "No. No. It's fun . . . like a disaster movie!"


Martin makes everything better.

A Desire for the Comfort of Fullness

This summer I have been trying very hard not to gain back my Denver weight. I have been bringing my lunch and changing my portions and refusing cake (that one was actually pretty easy, what with it being associated with grief and loss and abandonment and all). I have been trying to drink less, exercise more. Gobble water like my life depended on it.

I was watching the movie "Spanglish" the other day and there was a little bit of dialogue that I had to go back over and write down. Because I think it is true. The narrator kid says it, dubbed over Tea Leoni, skinny like a skinned squirrel, running up the road.

"American women, I believe, actually feel the same as Hispanic women about weight. A desire for the comfort of fullness. And when that desire is suppressed for style, and deprivation allowed to rule, dieting, exercising American women become afraid with everything associated with being curvaceous, such as wantonness, lustfulness, sex, food, motherhood. All that is best in life."

A desire for the comfort of fullness.

And I have been noticing this. I bring my yummy salad to work and follow it with an orange, and I'm good for the rest of the afternoon. The small amount of food does what it is supposed to do. It keeps me alive, alert, without a headache. I don't feel drowsy and loaded down or bloated up. Perfect fine. But not full. Not solid and fed and full and sated. Not in that luscious way that good food can bring.

And it makes me kind of wonder . . . is it so bad to be bigger and rounder than those hikey bikey jumpy squirrel people? To truly taste luscious food? To drink wonderful liquor every once in a while? Is that really something that I should be mean to myself about?

A desire for the comfort of fullness.

Food. Life. Love. Wine. Beauty. Art. Creation. Friendships. Laughter. Good ideas. Grand vistas.

Long, languid afternoons, listening to the sounds of the neighborhood and watching the pine tree grow.

Indulgence can over indulge. Of course. . . . But too much deprivation and shoulds makes everything awful.

Romantic Thing to Say

This week, during a bad day, I almost sent an email to a coworker that would have said just this:

"I hate everyone but you."

But I didn't. It was too romantic to send. He being married and all.

But it should be a card to buy at the supermarket.

"I hate everyone but you."

The Cave Between Gold and Platinum

For some time now I have been noticing a shift. Cake by cake, I am realizing that I am coming to the end of my Golden Years with The Program. Today, it's feeling very much like the end. A lot of people are gone. More are still going. Another one announced today. She's moving to Alaska. Unfortunately, I anticipate more cake.

This morning we also had an All Hands where the topic was the budget crisis and what we might have to do to get it right. The topic just made the day sick and done and empty.

We are millions in the hole -- mostly due to fuel prices. Millions in travel costs. Millions in charter costs. Our Head just froze full time hiring, travel and trainings. Now They are talking about docking the boats, canceling the LDB, closing runways, moth-balling planes.

Can you believe it? They are actually talking about canceling those boats. Two, big, red, ice breaking research vessels that have been running non stop since God knows when. They were the pride of the display cases. But now they are ships we can no longer afford. I joked about it not a month ago. "You wanna fix the budget? I know how to fix the budget," I said, hands on hips. "Cancel a boat! For fuck sake. It costs $12M a year!" And now, that cavalier declaration might just be coming true. They are probably going to cancel the boats.

Fuck.

Meanwhile our splintered twin of a client is back in Washington, fluttering around in a delusional frenzy, crashing into itself, approving more science. It funded ENORMOUS, international projects that have huge plane requirements (more fuel, more labor, more camp staff, more camp stuff, more flights all over), and we are talking about parking the boats and putting a whole division of the program out of business.

Yep. My Antarctic Golden Years are over. What I came to 10 years ago -- a mighty mighty American Hope and Dream -- is ground down and tired and over-extended. Literally hundreds of people have left it. Great people, who for whatever reasons, walked away. And no one is coming back right now because it's in such disarray. Disarray caused by many factors -- not all of which were our fault. But disarray none the less.

And, you know . . . despite the dark cave in which I now find myself, I have every hope that I am just in transition. Isn't that weird? More and more, I am committing to sit with my sick old friend. I need to admit that it will never be the Golden Years again. That much is clear. And I need to start the transition to my Platinum Years. Eventually, finer than Gold. I want to make another chapter for myself -- where I take what I have learned and make my old, tired friend vibrant again.

It's a weird and lonely and dark place I sit today. I can't see the path for the shifting, and we definitely don't have the right fools in the boat. We are paddling every which way, ripping the thing asunder. And I have no idea how in the world I will be of any help. But surely there is a way to right it -- somehow? Surely.

Flashes of Shame

There must be something in the moon lately. I am being plagued.

You know that party question . . . What was your most embarrassing moment? . . . Well, I never had an answer to that. I don't have one great big one that, years later, makes for a funny story. I have millions of tiny little ones. Small moments that when put together -- like lately -- become this crippling wave of horror, self hatred, and dread. Oh God, I think to myself. What have I done!

It's been bowling me over.

Why, oh why, do I need to wake up to these vivid old memories?

In a Quiet House

Sitting in a quiet house, our brains are left to wander.

I have a Shins song in my head. I know the tune but only the last word of each line. Crusade. Right. Hand like a knife. Forget about it . . . girl.

I am thinking what a shame it is that we do so much to numb ourselves. We get high and drink too much and blather at people and always need to be DOING something . . . so we don't just sit still and wonder.

I have been thinking about my little cousin who's in art school and hoping he's getting enough philosophy. He should be studying philosophy so his art has cool meaning. The search for the knowledge of self alone can create a life's work.

I have been thinking about the word hobo as used by my friends in the program. "Camping like hobos . . . " "Noble hobo." "I was living like a hobo, hiding food in bushes." And I am wondering to myself why that would be good. Hobos were lost men. Not men searching. But men alienated, aimless and demoralized. Aren't roots good? Aren't family and safety and connections something we are really searching for? Ultimately? I am reminded of Michael Perry and why he moved home.

I have been thinking about the weird red scrapes up my arm, that I must have gotten behind the bush when Dad and I were putting in the window well covers.

I have been wondering why all the sudden there are so many flies.

I watched the rescued baby bunny munch on the dead lettuce I put out when I thought he was abandoned. I find it funny that the bully squirrels, so bold and pushy around the birds, are deadly afraid of bunnies.

I can hear the mourning doves. They sound like they are in the ceiling.

Outside my office window is a sea of green, lit well in the cloudy afternoon. The sun is rolling on and off. Bright and dim again as the wind blows the clouds around. Now that the leaves are full, I can’t even see the houses across the way. I am in the woods! Like my day dream.

There is a fly stuck between the screen and the window. He is keeping his distance from the spider that just joined him.

I am thinking about the lake in Wisconsin and how beautiful and strange and dreamy the north woods really are.

I am noticing it’s time for lunch.

Day Dream

Today is a very quiet and cool Sunday. I have spent the morning day dreaming and journaling. I just took a walk around the neighborhood, and even it is sleepy and slow.

While journaling I had a vision of a life I want to lead. It is a slow and rainy Sunday in the woods. My partner (whomever he may be) and I are laying around in the screen porch, watching the rain hit the leaves, drinking smoothies, and reading something wonderful to each other. Something writerly, descriptive and lush. I read and my partner lays on the glider, gently swinging back and forth, rocking himself with his foot up against the wall of the house. It is almost dinner time. But we are in no rush. We'll eat fresh beans from the garden out the back. He'll grill some chicken. I have some cobbler left over from the party yesterday.

And the rain comes down and he glides back and forth.

Back and forth.

Blind Bubble

It is a quiet morning. Memorial Day. I'm up early to try to get everything done, and instead I'm drinking coffee and reading the internet. I was just browsing around on my little cousin's website, www.jaisgossman.com. He's an artist and an art student at the Chicago Art Institute. He's doing a lot of performance art lately. He did one piece about Abu Ghraib that referred to an image that came to represent the events there. The hooded man, with his arms outstretched. Photos of the performance are on his website.

When my sister and I were in Chicago we visited Jais. He was showing us around his dorm and the studio spaces and he showed us these photos, and it was a very weird moment. He brought up the picture of himself standing on Michigan Avenue, hooded, arms outstretched. I thought thoughts like, oh, he must be death or something. I didn't say anything, but something of my cluelessness must have been obvious. My sister turned to me and explained what Jais was referring to. She had to tell me that he was enacting an infamous image from Abu Ghraib. I had never seen it before.

Isn't that something?

How many years have gone by and I didn't have the visual? It's not that I'm not aware of the place, the torture, the trials, the horror of it. I heard about it. But, I never saw any of it. Frankly, who would want to? And this is all a result of how I have chosen to live at the moment, media free but for NPR. I leave the country and bury myself in the blissful coldness of Mars and never pay any attention for months at a time.

Today I'm asking myself if that's ok. I don't have the visuals, but I know about the events. Does it matter? Do images help to understand? Really? Or is it good enough to intellectually know? How removed am I from my times and my culture if I can't read the shared images? If I'm visually illiterate?

Just now I goggled Abu Ghraib to make sure I had the right spelling. The images came up. The real ones. And they are horrifying. Way more horrifying than what I have in my head.

Do we have to see information to know it?

Can I truly feel the impact of events without seeing them?

Do I make the right choice not to look?

Notes off the Desk

I am cleaning my desk at home. My relatives are coming this week, and I might as well look presentable. Here are all the little notes off the desk before I throw them away.

This first bunch are from a meeting I had in Madison in March.

Blog About:
* The starfish phone and the disembodied voice.
* The people who make you be most you. How Ellen brings out ALL of me - not just work me or social me. She can see all of me.
* Sense of Place and being called to a place.
* My beginning with Cube and Hutch and how far back I went with this project.
* About Madison.
* Changing the memories of Chicago and reclaiming places that were painful in the past, MN and Chicago.
* Recount the early AM and watching the sun rise over the capital. The determined feeling of living here.
* What is it I am looking for here?

Then I have a column on the same piece of paper titled "Muse About"
* Core values
* Ask BK where I should focus my attention with classes. Where do I want to go?
* Sitting on boards for art projects.
* What work do I really like to do?
* Do I want a PMP?
* What is the nature of management vs. project management?
* Review my volunteerism. Habitat for Humanity?
* What are my core competencies? What could be strengthened?
* What interests me? Outside and inside my life?
* Where is the confidence in my voice? When does it come? What am I talking about?
* What are the skills I feel I don't have?
* Where do I bug myself?

On the back of this page I wrote notes about the HBO characters:

Scene in lounge needs a connection to the RPSC side. They are a gang of white guys.

Characteristics of JH: He can keep every small detail in his head. Sits in meetings w/out notes. Confident - no job fear. Playful. Razor sharp wit.

Here are more from the pile . . . most aren't dated.

Blog about regaining the desire to learn.

Blog about my station self that is actually a hologram that is part of the building and not actually a separate being.

Blog about why are we not the 1960's.

Blog about admitting what is happening to us and the words retool, fall back and regroup. Feeling the advent of all my new skills in the face of my new boss.

Blog about leadership, the glow inside all of us, and the phrase "Talk at you later."

(Dated 2 May 2008) Blog about changing blogs, about difference between needing to jump start my creativity and self expression and now needing to noodle through where I am and what I am thinking about. Where I want to be going. Moved to do self help and I couldn't speak freely with the past readership. Hidden blog . . .

Journal about options, HBO, Hutch, This, PMO Training.

(Dated 16 May 2008) Blog about varience class and my new reaction to the information since getting away from scheduling. How long it took for this stuff to make sense and mean anything. How I had to move closer to management to make any of this mean anything. How hysterical I was at the transition to the PMO.

(Dated 16 May 2008) Think about the concept of bubbling up. Relax into the truths I am feeling. Admit my shit.

(Dated 16 May 2008) Blog about the PMO trainer. Tea pot method of presentation. Pounding on the table. Voice raise.

Most recently:
* Blog about conservative bullies and how I was just talked to at work.
* Blog about NPR painting a grand picture of doom, veggie story this morning.
* The gloom that is hanging all over me.
* Reading my book with no triumph of human greatness.
* The Reagan reference in the training, also Colin Powell, Thatcher and Roosevelt.
* Blog about how the NPP failure freaked me out about leadership.

The next three are quotes I wrote down while watching movies:

From Philadelphia Story:
Sidney Kidd: "I understand we understand each other."
Dexter: "Quite."

From Joe vs the Volcano:
"Dear God, who's name I do not know. Thank you for my life. I forgot . . . how . . . BIG. Thank you. Thank you for my life" -- Joe Banks.

Patricia: "Joe, nobody knows anything. We'll take this leap and we'll see. We'll jump and we'll see. That's life."
Joe Banks: "What are we hoping for here?"
Patricia: "A miracle."

Walk Around

I smell bad. I smell really, really bad. And I love it!

Today it’s hot and clear and beautiful. It’s probably 80 or more. The breeze is blowing around and making the fan in the bed room turn. I’ve had a glorious day.

I woke up late and finished the laundry. I wrote in my journal. I went and bought some hanging plants for the back. I made a delicious, fresh chopped salad with eggs and apples and onions. I walked to the grocery and bought produce. I made up hamburger patties to freeze. And I took a walk around the neighborhood.

Fat arms look better tan, so I shamelessly wore a strappy tank top and cropped pants. Brazen, I know. I put my greasy, two day old hair all the way up so my back would benefit from the sun. I got a piece of gum and a Kleenex (trademark) and set forth. I walked down the green space path towards the park. I saw several groups of little bitty kids digging around and one little girl in a pink dress and bike helmet yelled from the hill, “Hello!” and waved an enthusiastic greeting to me.

At the park was a teenaged boy baseball game, with parents and siblings sprawled all over in lawn chairs. Past the game was a beautiful, sporty gal trying to fly her kite. Her boyfriend across the field was laughing at her. A gorgeous young man flew by on a mountain bike, shirtless.

As I rounded the corner to the play area, there was a group of boys and dads. They were clustered together by the trashcans. All the boys had white somethings in their hands. As I got closer I saw they had each fashioned a blow gun out of PVC pipes, wildly pieced together in bends and turns. In their hands were sandwich baggies full of marshmallows. The dads were positively giddy, grinning at me as I pasted. “I’ll be your ammo man,” one declared. “Thunk,” and a marshmallow whacked up against the metal can. “Ha, ha, ha. That was great!”

It was hilarious.

Then I moved on to my favorite part of the walk. Behind the tennis courts and over by the stream. It was flowing pretty well, after a week of rain. The water sounded wonderful. The wind brought wet grass smell and tree blossom to me. My hair tendrils flew around and stuck to my lip gloss.

Now I’m home, reddening from the sun, smelling of dirt in sweat and old sandal feet. I’m gooey and earthy and sun baked, and I couldn’t be happier.

Outside is so lovely when you need it. It’s so fresh and real and wonderful.

Cake

I can no longer eat cake.

For three years . . . more if you count Floyd . . . I have been watching people leave the Program and each and every one of them gets caked. Today, Christine got bageled, but she's the rare exception.

And now, because it started with the first few, every one of the departing gets framed photos around which everyone signs, and plaques and figurines and parties and drinks after work. And we collect money for more presents and we sign cards and we are forced to pay witness . . . and eat the fucking cake.

And there have been so many -- hundreds of people leaving . . . seven last week alone -- that I can't do it anymore. I can't eat one more slab of cake.

And because there have been so many, none of it means anything. People receive their expected signed mat photo and they make a speech about how hard it is for them to leave the program and how special it has all been, and we all nod and smile -- and no one cares! The departing want to run out of the building and the rest of us are just fed up being left behind to somehow figure out how to keep it going.

I won't do it.

No more cake.

Owning Our Shit

For the third week in a row, my Safeway is out of Tofu. My friend who's working in Alaska wrote recently that rice is hard to find in Fairbanks. Gas prices are climbing. The housing market is fucked. NPR is reporting on a world wide food shortage.

Don't you think that it's about time we admit what we have done?

That destroying countries and sustaining two big wars, and bombing little countries in Africa might start taking a toll on normal? In World War II they collected tires and rationed meat.

When will we admit that we made this mess?

Maybe it's good that we are starting to feel it . . . Then maybe we might do something to make it go away.

Changed Landscape

Here's the deal . . . my life landscape has changed. And it's done so rather quickly. There are several things happening at once. The good ones are personal. The scary, professional.

The Good . . . I am trying to become The Woman I Want to Be. This includes exercising more seriously and more frequently. So far, I have LOST weight since I've been off the ice, which never happens. Usually by May, I have gained 10 pounds. I am teaching myself new things, mainly quilting, which is bringing me a new kind of zen joy I never would have imagined. I am saving money, recycling more, buying less, taking my lunch to work, cooking real food, conserving water, and taking myself seriously. All the things The Woman I Want to Be would do. Personally, I feel more and more on top of my game.

The Scary . . . My work situation has CHANGED. My boss just quit. It was time. She had fought a good fight, and now she has a great opportunity. It will give her more time to be with the people she loves. It's the right thing. But, it has left a HUGE, sucking hole in her wake. My desk is right outside her old office and the whole area of the building is now dim. She is a natural born leader. Fair and kind and competent and capable . . . and she glows. She glows a bright yellow light out of her middle. I shit you not. She glows yellow. And now she's not around. Before she ascended into the job, there was another great woman in the position. South Pole had a really great run there, for what? . . . Seven years?

And now, the heir apparent is a guy. An engineer guy who's heart is probably in the right place, but who doesn't seem up to the task. His personal life is messy and keeps him away from the office several afternoons a week and every other Friday. He has never been able to keep up with all his emails and get things done on time. His powers of observation are about as sharp as a blind lump of clay. Now he's about to step into the most challenging role in the group. A role that is 24/7 on call. A role that manages an entire city of responsibility, caked in a mess of political negotiation. A role that requires multitasking, people skills, baby sitting, and state department level decision making (Literally. State Department). And here's this guy who doesn't and can't and . . . I could go on and on about him, but that's not really the point.

The point is . . . South Pole has changed. And it's dim and scary and dull and sad right this minute.

To add another layer of difficulty . . . on Friday I found out my ex-great-boss' pretty great boss has resigned in frustration as well. So, the only hope for someone capable enough to help lead the new guy through it, is now leaving.

You see, my company's contract with the NSF has two years left. After that, we will most likely change hands. The possibility is high that a new contractor would hire most of us on. Not the tall poppies, but the worker people. They wouldn't be able to fire everyone and find 2,000 new people who could waltz in and run Antarctica. But, that situation is coloring the whole place gray. People are bailing on all sides, jumping out of this sinking ship. For those of us who are choosing to stay, there is a mood that it no longer matters. Two years? We can endure this hell for two more years. We can live through anything for two years.

But, can I?

There's the big question. Can I live through what will surely become chaos for two years . . . still love the work I do and the program itself . . . and ready myself for the next contractor? And what does "ready myself" mean?

Here's what became true this past week . . . I realized I want to ascend. I want to know more about the big picture of this . . . and I would love to make some decisions about the future. I want to spend these two miserable, dead years preparing myself to take over. I don't want it now . . . because Directors are lopped off . . . but I want to be ready when the new opportunities come.

And that's kind of new for me.

I still want to write the HBO series and weld and garden and run a foundation and move to Wisconsin . . . but none of that will pay the bills right now. I work here. I work here. And I need to make it work for me. I need to learn new things and stretch a bit.

And, I'm trying to make that not feel like a cop out. So many folks around me are writing their new chapters elsewhere. Can I write a new chapter by staying put?

A New Way to Mark Time

My sister blogs and she has changed blogs several times. I never really got that until I needed to change my own. I got to a point where I had all kinds of notes all over about things I wanted to blog about, but I just couldn't get them up. I couldn't picture them on that blue back ground, knowing who would be reading them. And now I realize why we have to change up sometimes . . . blogs mark time and mark periods of our lives and when we come to the end of one, we must start another.

I put Putting It Out There up because I needed a creative outlet. I needed to jump start my zombified brain and remember that I had things to say and a unique way of seeing the world. And it worked for that. Worked very well. It also helped me frame experiences, give events in my life a beginning, middle and end. But now it won't work for me because I'm done with that need. Now, when so much of my life seems up in the air, I need a self help board. I need a place where I can whine about the loss of my very best boss. Where I can muse about possible futures and where I can bemoan the next hard laps. And that just wasn't what Putting It Out There was all about.

I chose the title of this blog because I very much feel like I'm standing near the edge of the cliff and I'm about to turn, walk towards it, open my arms and jump. I just don't know where I'm jumping to.

I guess we'll find out together.

Free!

Oh my God. I feel so free!

I was bogging down blogging on the other site, knowing that people I no longer really want to hear my interior could see it.

Ahhhhhh.

Hiding! And free! Free, free!

Celebrating my freeness!

I have nothing wise to report . . . just a bit of joy.

Ending the Start and Beginning Anew

Well now. Bosses change . . . people come and go and I needed to be able to speak freely. So . . . Beth Next . . .

Let's see where this goes.

B