I could spend hours playing on different parts of the internet

I could spend hours reading or listening to OTHER people who are doing it so well

Or just distract myself with trashy distractions of stuff that I believe I could do better than.

And I could work myself into a tizzy of hopelessness thinking, oh no one will ever notice what I read, no one will care or even if they do care they will not be impressed

But the thing is…it doesn’t matter what other people think of what I’m doing. It matters a little. But what matters most of all is that i do it because I like it

Chris decided he needed a new car.

I don’t really believe in new cars. I was not raised with new cars, and his new (okay, eleven years old new) car was not new enough for him.

“What’s wrong with your car? Why do you need a new one?”

“Good point!” he said. “If I am going to get a new car, it should be a significant improvement on my current one.”

whoa. Not at all where I was headed with my question.

But he wants a new car, and we could probably afford it so okay. He test drives and researches and discusses. We want this car to be a keeper, one that will please us for another 10 years like the one we have now.

He finally decides on the first rung of the BMW ladder.  Does he not realize this will cause me to rue my previous words from the “Alaska Road Rules” story?

He does not. This is the car he wants.  He is decided and decisive ( i LOVE that about him), and he sends an email to the dealer.

Say, salesman of the car I want –he says–do you have this car?

Salesman replies no, but he can order it from Germany.

An email is sent to Germany. The factory is going to make a car for us, just like a pizza. We get to watch, through the internet, the car progressing through the factory.

“The car is done! They are loading it onto the ship.”

Oh, yes, oh yes, they are loading Chris’s car ONTO A SHIP and sending it to America.

During this time, Chris locates a documentary on TV that shows us what it looks like to load a car transport ship full of cars. We talk about it and see what kind of ride our little car will be having on it’s first sea voyage.

He gets to watch it in the form of a little green arrow on the map of the Atlantic ocean sail our way. It will have to go through the Panama Canal to get to California.

But wait! WAIT! there is a concern.

Hurricane Sandy is also crossing the Atlantic. It happens to be gaining strength during a moment of radio silence (Gps silence?). Is our ship coming in? Is our little white car okay?

Now we get to watch with more intensity, feeling privileged and safe because it is just a car and not our home or our family under threat of hurricane.

We see that a number of green arrow ships have huddled out in the ocean away from the shore to wait out the storm. Probably our ship in amongst them.

But! There is an automated email that is sent, telling Chris that the ship has arrived at the Panama Canal early. The wise and skillful crew of our car’s transport ship hurried to get ahead of the storm. Chris got to watch our very ship, with our very car, progress through the locks that were created a hundred years ago to let ships get to California. He took snapshots and showed them to me after the fact.

Our ship has passed that landmark. The green arrow is coming this way. It has in fact landed and the car will be in our hands, probably by the time you read this.

The future is now. In case you didn’t recognize it. Jet packs are just retro.

I’m talking about self-help books. Or books on a topic.

I love books, and I dont’ read a lot of non-fiction. Lots of people love non-fiction though. It’s huge!

Books for the pleasure o flearning, history books that are not textbooks. Or self help books
“How to win friends and influence people”

Is this an american phenomenon? I don’t know. I suppose I could

LOOK IT UP

the internet is a very american phenomenon.

But. In literature classes about books…Sometimes they are novel, sometimes they are poetry,s ometiems they are plays.

But sometimes they are not.

Wasn’t greek philosophy that way? Plato and aristotle…haven’t read much of them but I know the gist is about thinking.

I think about the now, and what is the book of now that is going to be read a hundred years from now. I’m reading Ulysess..That might get read. But that’s almost a hundred years old!

What’s now? What is everyone reading now that will be rmembered so fondly? Franzen? …maybe…I kinda hope we can do better.

There are beautiful genre books. Mysteries…Romance…fantasy and sci fi…I’m not, but a lot of people love horror. Twilight?

I see a lot of people reading self help books. Aren’t diet books perennially best sellers?

can you imagine? oh my lord. Dr Atkins beign read as literature 100 years from now. No. NO I cannot.

But what is the shining pearl? What have we got?

What are we doing already? We can’t seem to stop writing writing buying books.

I’ve had this lingering cold, but my soul is satisfied. Two weeks of satisfied. Three weeks of cold. maybe more than three weeks.

But there is happiness in my life.

Hello, happy, my old friend.

Women complain a lot about how men feel entitled. That the guy gets to have his way, that HIS voice in the meeting is the one to be heard.

I know that men tend to state things rather than reference things. Women I know will say ” I heard a news story about a huge pile of trash in the ocean that no one will clean up.” Men will usually say “There is a big pile of trash in the ocean.”

Women feel like we have to back up what we say, because it’s not enough that we say it. Men will just assert it. It can come across as arrogant.

I sometimes try to do this in my job, because it seems that arrogance pays. I dont’ know if it does or not.

But men often say that women are entitled. Men say it long and loud how women are x, y, z entitled.

It is hard for me to see. It’s hard for anybody to see the back of their head that way. Boy oh boy, men don’t like it when women call them entitled. Women don’t like it either.

I heard this fascinating interview with a person, born female, who underwent a sex change operation. He described the changes, and one of the things she had to trainsition into as a man was different conversational style. He said as a man, that he had to learn to realize that he didn’t get to ramble on in conversations the way a woman might. He missed it. He said “but I’m so fascinating!” in a self-mocking way.

I wonder. Men do complain about women rambling on. And we can, it’s true. Do we feel entitled to tell our stories in the detail we want?

I’m not sure. Maybe.

It is very hard to know what it’s like from the other side. There are a number of greek myths that talk about going from one to the other, man and woman.

I know I wish that the men in my life understood and appreciated how amazing–ingenius and preseverent–I am. It seems taken for granted. Hm.

This piece made me think about it.

And this:

This is where he is supposed to have an epiphany of how amazing I am and what a hard week it has been for me…

Only he doesn’t.

only he doesn’t. It doesnt’ seem to matter which “he” i’m talking about either.

There are times when I hear “good job” or “thank you.”  It does happen. But the context and emphasis is insufficient.

Yes, it has come back to gold stars. Proper appreciation, Proper respect.

I feel very entitled to that. So much so that it can kinda ruin my day if I don’t get them.

It is very seldom that I get them. What on earth makes me think I am entitled? Not experience, that’s for sure

Most of you know I”ve been looking very hard for a new job. The search has not been successful, in that i don’t have a new position yet. But it has been very rewarding in many ways I didn’t expect.

I was listening to an interview with the animator for a bunch of grown-up comedy cartoons. He talked about how he had not done so well in school, but at one point, he met a guy.  A guy who talked to him and hooked him up to become a professional animator.

And when he met the guy, he never looked back. The interviewer was asking if he had any doubts about the value of animation.  But this guy, Loren Bouchard, said he knew that this was his chance. He knew that animation was his chance and this was what he better get really good at it and stay good at whatever it was.

That is exactly how I felt about my career in videoconferencing. When I got the internship, I knew that this was my chance. I had nothing nothing nothing going on. The best I could have expected was a long slog through state college at the most ordinary and unmarketable major–ENGLISH–and get in line with all the other ordinary-at-best people who graduated, but I’d have student loans.

But I got this chance. And I took it. I did not attend the state university I had been accepted to. I took a scary risk and went to find a job. And once I found it I dove into it, because this was my chance.

I was so hungry and desperate then. I didn’t have anything going on.  And this showed up. I had to grab on and never let it go.

And, to be fair, it took me pretty far.  I should remember. It was my big break, as tired of it as I am now.

Sometimes that sort of thing happens. It takes awareness, I think. To know that

so today was pretty great. I was worn out most of the weekend (staying out late does have consequences)

But I ate very healthy, and had a productive (TOTALLY NOT THE NORM) workday.

It was a good day.

I shall not give up on my ambition. But maybe i can take a half day on the ambition.

preachers told this story, it was like a joke i’d heard so many times. I don’t know where the all got it from, or whether it is true.

THe story is that the way to trap a monkey is to drill a hole in a coconut just the size of a monkey hand, and then put a rock in the coconut.

THe monkey will put its little hand in the coconut, grab the rock and then pull their hand out. THing is thought, when they are holding that rock their fist is too large to get out of the hole.

they will not let go of their wonderful surprise and the hunters will catch them

What is the risk and what is the reward?

Veronica is at the stage where she is beginning to understand the difference between boys and girls. She understands pretty well, to be clear.

I was asking her about it. “Is Veronica a boy?”

“NO! silly mommy”

“Is Veronica a girl?”

“Yes.”

“Is daddy a boy?”

“No, he’ s bigger.”

Astute. “Is mommy a girl?”

“no…”

“No? What is mommy?”

“Mommy is a princess”

Mutual princess recognition.