Going Going Gone

"So...how are you feeling?" This seems to be the question on people's lips these days.

I'm pretty sharp on a good day, so I know they're not talking about the unrelenting and hideous rash on my arm which I've had for more than a week and which itches like the sun on the beach.
I'm also pretty sure they're not asking about the two concerts that I have to sing in this weekend, one of them two and half hours away, which is okay because I'm sure they'll go fine once I find my concert clothes and learn my music and get over my rage at the business side of this season. And I'm positive they're not talking about my spiritual well-being because, well, this is Boston.

In addition to being sharp, I am the worst liar you ever met. I used to try anyway, because that sort of thing comes in handy from time to time, but it fell flat enough times for me to wise up. It's a real bummer when they find out you aren't really royalty. Or that you don't really think that new haircut is so swell, you ate the last cookie, and you are in fact going to be in town this weekend, you just don't want to be with them. Better just to tell the truth.

So I've been doing just that.

Other than having no idea where I'm going to get the money for my rent and health insurance and cable and summer camp and chocolate and utilities and clothes and food and travel and life, with the wee bit of anxiety that such a predicament occasionally produces, I am just about as close to great as I have ever been.

Because after all, there's nothin' makes you feel better than being thrown a goodbye party and thanked for your contributions. Which does seem all the more likely to happen if there is actually an acknowledgement of your resignation. And maybe even a notice that you're leaving, so people stop wondering why you seem to have grown gradually fainter around the edges so that, wonder of wonders, they just don't seem to be able to see you any more.

Whoops. There's that bitterness creeping in. Sorry. I meant to leave that at the office.

Today was my last day working for one of Fortune Magazine's Best Places to Work, an honor that makes milk come out of my nose.

You know all of those things you've always said you'd do if you had time or freedom? You know all of those great ideas that you've had that you think might even provide a comfortable income if you ever had time to do them? You know all those people who tell you it can be done? (and all those people who tell you the opposite, well, we're not talking about them). You know the feeling that "I could be great if they would let [listen to, follow] me"? I hope you do.

Deep and Relevant Lesson for the Day: There is no letting. There is only being.

Hey, it only took me thirty years to figure that out. I'm ahead of the curve.

Hand me a sparkler. It's Independence Day.

Running Away To Join the Circus

There comes a time, at least for people like me (if there are indeed, other people like me, which the jury is still out on), when you have to get creative about what you're going to do to pay the rent (and the cable bill, because, well, life isn't worth living without old movies, re-runs of reality shows, and the science channel). Because you know, not to be too gloomy or anything, life is short. Or at the very least, its length is unpredictable. You read (or watched) "The Last Lecture", you know what I'm sayin'. (You didn't? You should, even though it's been overpublicized to death, no pun intended). Yeah, I know, I shouldn't tell you what you should do. Fine. Do what you want, what do I care.

But you know, as glib as I am...(and I am, even if only to have the opportunity to write that word...glib...I mean, who made up that word, isn't it so great?)...I mean it.

Maybe it comes from visiting a wonderful sweet 5 1/2 year old boy in the hospital as he (and his family) bravely faces childhood cancer.

Maybe it comes from spending a whole day in an emergency room a couple of weeks back, only to find out after all kinds of tests and a follow-up visit to my regular doc, that there's nothing wrong. But of course there is (something wrong)--something that is, by the way, a whole hell of a lot easier to fix than most of the things the doctors could have found. I've even been cleared to run around a field waving my hands like an idiot and doing somersaults, which was really bumming me out to not be able to do.

Maybe it comes from feeling like crap after yelling at my kid, essentially for not conforming, which has just got to put me in the running for the Irony Award of 2009.

Maybe it comes from midlife, with all of its glorious temperature changes and sleep disturbances.

Or maybe it doesn't come from any of those things. Maybe I'm just waking up and smelling the coffee (which I'm not drinking anymore, but I still love that turn of phrase). Whatever. It's about damn time.

I've been feelin' for a while that one of those times is approaching. I am being thrust (note the passive voice) , after putting up the fight of a lifetime, into the realization that I just stink at some things. Conformism, mostly.

I've been reading books. Visualizing. Working hard on "trusting the path". Browsing yard sales for old mugs that say "Follow Your Bliss" or dog-eared copies of "Do What you Love, The Money will Follow". Yeah, right.

And I've been thinking. A lot.

I've got a lot of ideas so far. No, really, I do. Some of them are even good ideas. And some of them might even make enough to pay the rent, with food thrown in for good measure (whoa, I'm giddy just thinking about it). Some of them, you'll be sad to know, are actually reflective of my academic training and work experience. But chin up--it's only some. You'd be surprised at some of the things that interest me (or maybe you wouldn't). Like this, for example:




I ask you, who wouldn't want to do that? I mean, summer is approaching, the fairs are every weekend, the average joe and joella are easy to please (I mean, really, there's a recession on, people just want a reason to smile), and it doesn't require pushing any papers or negotiating with anyone or being a particular age or having a certain degree or dressing any special way or extolling your virtues or even really getting along with people. There's no big capital outlay, you don't need investors, and best of all, you don't have to justify anything to anyone. And no matter what you do during the week, it's a weekend gig. And my kid says she's in. Perfect.

No. I saw it first. Okay, so it was on youtube, where anyone can see it. But I still saw it first. Because I said so, that's why.

As for the other ideas...I'm not tellin'. Because I don't have to. Stay tuned. I probably won't be able to keep my mouth shut. But no copying. For real. If you don't believe me, listen to the girl. She means business.

The Unbearable Heaviness of Typing

I've decided there's just too much paradox to go around.

In the brief moments when I am able to step outside of myself, with a smidgen of hypothetical objectivity, what I mostly see is exhaustion. Mind-numbing, physically paralyzing exhaustion. And yes, the blog is just one more thing to do. But it is energizing, life-giving. To write is to exist. This is one of the few times when I don't feel tired.

When I was a child, and things weren't going so well, I went (or was sent) to my room. I closed and locked the door, with or without accompanying sound effects. And then, I wrote notes. I pushed them under the door of my room into the hallway, and waited for someone to find them. In that bedroom, behind a locked door, words on paper reminded me, and hopefully others, that I was still "in there", in more ways than one. So I guess what I'm saying is that I wouldn't call this a new realization.

I am not the sort who cuts myself slack when I am this tired (or any other time, for that matter). I analyze it, I diagnose it. I worry about it and think I should go to the doctor. I come up with a list of attributions (damn hormones), many of which are pretty self-deprecating. I start drinking strong coffee again, forgetting that coffee doesn't keep me awake at all and makes me feel crummy to boot. I tell myself that the fatigue is simply a state of being that arises directly from being "stuck" in one realm or another (and believe me, I've got no shortage of realms). And I strategize remedies. I should eat better (which is true), I should exercise more (which is true), I should get to that flotation place I've been trying to get to, I should make stuff, I should blah blah blah...which makes me think of a song (if you don't yet know this about me--that everything makes me think of a song--now you do.) If you haven't heard the Cheryl Wheeler song "Unworthy", check it out (or at least check out the lyrics, though you haven't heard it until you hear her sing it). You'll laugh till you cry. And you might recognize yourself. I sure do.

Maybe it's really not all that complicated. Maybe it really is true that energy is to be found in doing what you love, what feeds you, what you do to stay alive in your heart, not what you necessarily do to pay the bills. Maybe vitality is located in that which is vital. Go figure. Makes sense to me.

There's too much paradox to go around. I can barely lift my hands to type, and I think that, if I can keep my eyes open, I'll make this a night where I write one line, just to keep up my end of the nablopomo bargain. But once begun, I am alive in this space, this little box on a screen that holds more energy than many other spaces that might be considered more "real". I feel sluggish in my work (day job, paid work) but have at least 5 feasible and yet time- and energy-sucking ideas for revising that work life every day, any one of which fills me with energy and enthusiasm and makes me feel as if there are not enough hours in the day to do all of the things I want to and am ready to do. I sign-on to a definition of myself as simply low energy--probably from being overweight--while at the same time trying to find time to get back into long distance swimming, taking a rock climbing class, walking at the track now that the snow is gone, and always--but always--up for an adventure.

Blogging about blogging. Thinking about thinking. Understanding understanding. Being outside and inside things at the same time.

Meta-everything. That's my kind of deal.