Is behavior, belief?

Monday morning.

I catch up on my email, read through a bunch of FB posts, and think about starting work.

Except... there is no work to be done.  No phone calls to be made, no orders to enter, no quotes to take care of.  Nothing real. 

Lots of speculation though - reports that will get thrown in the trash, requests for funds that will get filed in a drawer and marketing forecasts that will have coffee spilled on them (and then get thrown in the trash).

A couple of months ago an acquaintance of mine stopped by the house to say hi.  He lives about an hour away so I really only kept in touch with him through FB.  I seriously, do not even have his phone number.  So as we are chatting it up, he tells me he had to get off FB and all of his social networking sites because he was starting to feel inconsequential.  He could not help comparing himself to others and he felt like he wasn't matching up.  He shut the whole thing down in an effort to get back to focusing on his family and his own life.

I suppose I get it. 

I can't help comparing myself to my perceptions about other people's lives.  Are they as bored as me?  Unchallenged?  Sad?   To take a page out of my friend's book - no.  They look busy and happy and healthy.  I don't believe it though..  not really. 

I think most of us are stuck in a rut.  Not knowing the right steps to get out.  Fear manipulating our choices.  Boredom blocking our way.  I never thought I would be apathetic... but here I am. 

All I want to do is be snarky and negative
All I really need to do is positive and move forward.

I heard on NPR today that the best way to manipulate your belief is change your behavior  (some teacher study on working with problem students). 

This is an ongoing theme that my head hears but my heart just can't seem to deliver...

My demon is a demanding bitch...

Whether you've actually seen the Twilight movies or not - you may have seen the trailer where Edward looks at Bella and says.. "you are my own special brand of heroin." 

And that my dears... is my relationship with food. 

I love it.  I need it.  I think about it hundreds of times a day. 

What am I going to eat? When? Where? With who?

I eat when I'm happy, confused, depressed, hungry, not hungry, anxious, sick, bored and busy. 

I love healthy food, bad food, restaurants, food trucks, eating at home, eating at parties and everything in between. 

The trouble is - when you are addicted to the one thing that has the propensity to kill you it's hard to know when to stop. 

My entire life revolves around food.  I exercise so I can have an excuse to feed my demon.  When I don't, I feed the fucker anyway and then bitch when my jeans are too tight.  I justify my menu because I believe I deserve to have some happiness. 

I play games with myself and my diet depending on my mood of the minute/hour/day/month.

I am so very tired of cutting deals with myself over my obsession with food. 

I am tired and don't want to think about it anymore....  except that I am in love with her... my demon...  and I don't know how to just eat enough to survive instead of enough to sooth my soul. 

Pigtails on women are silly

Stop the madness!

If you are over 40, nay 20 - there is no reason I can understand why you would ever need or choose to wear your hair in pigtails or, better yet, braided pigtails.

Truly, help me understand.  I get that you went to a few Grateful Dead shows in college... tried to follow Phish but decided that was a far stretch from the real thing.. and finally, gave up and turned to some "cat fish blue" on the weekends.

I get that you love healthy, sustainable, organic agriculture.  I appreciate that you still own and buy Birkenstocks.  I realize you still have a jingly ankle bracelet in your jewelry box, an old Guatemalan pouch filled with shake from about 15 years ago and your tarot cards upstairs wrapped in a silk scarf. (oh, wait, is that just me??)

But, why - in the name of Jerry and the boys- do you need pigtails?  Oh.. and a pioneer woman scarf?  I little babushka feel, really.

I can rock an old school hippie vibe with my hair pulled back in a simple ponytail.

Just sayin...

Washing walls

Who in the hell washes their walls?

Left to my own devices I would drink beer and listen to country music while reading a Dan Brown-esque novel and getting a tan.  hmmm.. maybe this weekend?

I have always worked.  At 15 my mom used to drop me off in the summer at the local no-tel mo-tel so I could clean rooms for the folks who owned the place. (for 20 years I could NOT stand the smell of curry) 
At 16 I did exactly 3 days a McDonalds.
I worked through high school at the True Value hawking lumber and toilet bowl parts to my friends' parents.
College is a dizzying array of waitressing gigs and radio. First shift, third shift.. you name it.  I secretly fashioned myself a modern day Flo from Alice's Diner... 
After school - it was real world radio and tv jobs.
During babies - it was teaching aerobics
After babies - it was the family fence business
Now - it's somebody else's manufacturing business

And at no point through any of this did it ever once occur to me that I should spend a day of my life washing the walls of my house/apartment/condo.  I work all the time...

Normally my house looks pretty clean.  It doesn't smell and you can easily pull the "5 second rule" on a dropped hot dog without a trip to the bathroom or the emergency room 8 hours later.   What I can't figure out though is how to make enough time in my life to wash the walls.  WTF?  Here's how the wall washing would play out in my world (and my justification for not doing it).

"I am going to wash the walls today"
"I suppose I should do it one room at a time"
"I will start in my bedroom and work down through the house"
"I should dust everything first"
"Those louver doors are going to take about 45 minutes to detail them and get it right"
"If I am doing the louver doors, I should probably clean out the closet"
"I need to go get some new vacuum cleaner bags so after I get everything pulled out I can clean the floor under all the shoes"
"I need to donate those shoes and the clothes to Goodwill - I should pick up some garbage bags too.."

So... 4 hours later clothes sorted and louvers dusted it's half way through the day and I would not have even washed walls in ONE room.

I really want to tell myself that if you're going to do it - do it right - one time - that'll hold.
What I think really choose to do is - look the other way.

I am very good at looking the other way - I wish I was better at doing it right.

I'm back.. with a LONG damn list

So...  I've been away awhile.  Kind of a long while actually, for no other reason than I've been damn lazy and distracted. 

Back in the day I started this as a way to keep myself on track with the "I want to get healthy" thing.  In reality,  all the "I want to get healthy" thing really means is: "I want to look smokin' hot in those jeans." Don't lie - you know it's true.

For the record I am back on the health tip but it's going to start taking a backseat to the screaming in my head.  I don't know if it's because I am getting older or meaner but my patience for the world is waning.  Never fear my dears... I still get all hearts and rainbows every now and again but the shiznit I have seen over the summer has got me ready to bitch slap the next size 2 soccer mom who calls herself fat.  

Angst?  Yep.  Frustration?  You bet.

I've done a whole summer of beach vacations and parties so I am ready to get this thing started again...Here's the coming attractions - (so I can take them off Evernote on my phone)

Old gay man waiters
Skinny jean wearing Euroamericans
Young love with no future
Why bud light may, in fact, be the worst beer ever foisted upon Americans
Cheese people
Washing walls
Shaving my legs - why or why not?
Overeating to compensate for feelings of inferiority
Expectations and disappointments..
Twitter stalking
20 somethings

Yes - I can see where this going.  I may be one of the nicest people you ever meet in real life - but here, in this space,  I am going to tell my version of the truth... and it won't be pretty or edited for television. 

I need to purge so grab a bucket. 

Black butterfly day -

Today is a dark day (not outside, it's beautiful).

Work is for shit and I am seriously questioning my life choices again.  When I am super busy I simply do NOT have time to kvetch about anything.  It's one thing, to the next, to the next... with no down time to think about anything else.

When things get slow I start questioning everything...
Am I good at what I do?
Do I like what I do?
Shouldn't I be grateful that I have a job?

Grateful my ass... grateful to who?  I spend everyday doing what I think I should instead of what I want and create little games with myself to distract myself from the real dirt.  I am currently in a 6 week competition with a chick at work to see who can stay on plan long enough to lose 40 pounds... No, I am not going to lose 40 pounds in 6 weeks - shit, I will be lucky to lose 10.  In reality we are both hoping for 40 by August which a much more reasonable goal.  The "goal" however is merely a distraction from life. 

I get up every morning and go through the motions.  So does everyone I know.  What makes me so special that I think I deserve more. 

About a year ago I was at a work function and after a day of seminars and what-not, a few folks met up for drinks.  After about 2 martinis I start to talk and before I know it things are loud and everyone is laughing and having a great time.  One of the people we were with is a successful businessman who was telling us about his new home in Tuscany - yes, Italy.  (Bastard).  Anyway, houses in Tuscany led to politics and politics found me the lone Democrat in a room of Republicans.  It's hard to stop my mouth and after a few semi-heated exchanges, said businessman told me... wait for it... that I was "average - in every way."

WTF?  "average in every way", me? Really?  Whoa...  I hadn't had a blow to my psyche like that since about 7th grade.  Seriously....   average?  OK.   Clearly - it threw me for a loop because in some ways I've always wanted to be average.  Average size so I can shop in normal stores.  But not just average....   I really think I was put here to be more than average.  To do good work - to help people - to inspire - to excel - to be more than average.

Which brings me back to today.  Do I really deserve more for myself.  I do if I want to be better than average, right?  So in the middle of all this existential thinking about what to do with my life I get hit with a series of problems with my customers.  One right after the other - bang, bang, bang.  I have to go out back into our industrial shop to fix one of them and in the middle of my "am I an average shithead" conversation with myself I find a black butterfly.  In the middle of a manufacturing shop.  On my product.  Looking at me.

When I reached out to touch it, it did not fly away - it jumped on to my finger.  And stayed.  A long time. 10 minutes or more while I showed a friend of mine.   

Because I am always looking for symbolism  - here is what a quick google search came up with:

"Herein lies the deepest symbolic lesson of the butterfly. She asks us to accept the changes in our lives as casually as she does. The butterfly unquestioningly embraces the changes of her environment and her body.
This unwavering acceptance of her metamorphosis is also symbolic of faith. Here the butterfly beckons us to keep our faith as we undergo transitions in our lives. She understands that our toiling, fretting and anger are useless against the turning tides of nature – she asks us to recognize the same. "

Now what... my "average" brain is having trouble processing... suggestions?

I miss the girl

The issue is, that I thought there would be more. 

When you are 17, there is a world of opportunity and things you could be.  Some people are content with what I thought were pretty pedestrian plans (yes, at 17 I was a judgemental bitch).  I was convinced I would change the world.  I wasn't scared of standing up, or yelling loud or demanding more.

Now, not so much.

At 40, I don't know where that girl went... and that, I'm convinced, is the problem.  She is still inside screaming and kvetching and whining all the time that there has to be more.  More fun, more money, more fame, more power... more, more, more.   But instead, the woman she became is grown up and responsible and truly disappointed in herself. 

Because everything is a "give and take" - she took the compromises.  She no longer demands more.  She no longer is willing to take the same kind of risks.  

I miss the girl.  I can't believe she won't fight her way back.  I'm rooting for her.  I'm rooting for me.