Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Ode To Frank
Jennifer @ 5:06 PM link
Gratitude List
1) I am grateful that I do not have any boils on my body. 2) I am grateful that I am able to breathe. 3) I am grateful that blogging was invented. 4) I am grateful for memos because my day would seem empty without them. 5) I am grateful for voicemail. It is useful for both avoiding phone calls and for leaving stupid messages. 6) I am grateful for snow, ice, sleet, and best of all, freezing rain. They add so much excitement to the drive to work. 7) I am grateful for caffeine. No, really. I mean it. 8) I am grateful Ben & Jerry's, particularly 'concession obsession'. Now you know more about me than my parents do. 9) I am grateful for indecision. In myself, I find it a restful way to procrastinate. In others, I see it as an opportunity to have my own way. 10) I am grateful for onomatopoeia. It can lead me into an afternoon amusing myself by repeating the word 'each' endlessly.
Jennifer @ 4:46 PM link
Saturday, January 25, 2003
A Poet in My Own Life If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; becaues for the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place. RMRilke
So I'm off to New Haven today for gallery/photo/movie/dinner and I am so excited. It seems to have been a week of slogging at work and home (and internally). I think it's all shaken out, however, and what gives me faith in this is my kitchen sink. It mysteriously clogged on Tuesday. I discovered that the water wouldn't drain when I decided to activate my inner domestic goddess and actually do the dishes. The sink, despite the fact that the stopper was out, continually filled with water. I emptied the sink of skanky dishes and tried liquid plumber, industrial strenght drano, and a plunger. The only thing I had achieved by my efforts was to create a chemical swamp in my kitchen. I backed away slowly and went to work. My landlord didn't have any luck with the sink either so he asked that I call a plumber and send him the bill. Friday night began with me staring blankly into a weekend crammed full of old dirty dishes; I began calling plumbers. Seems there are a lot of plumbing problems these day...pipes freezing and people without heat...I was informed that it was unlikely I would see a plumber until Tuesday! Okay, totally unacceptible. I decided to risk flying old rusty (the errant dishwasher), even if it only turned out to be a place to store the rank tableware, it was better than what was going on (did I mention I had made shepard's pie the night the sink stopped up? Do you know what old meat and potatoes looks like when the fat congeals?) The friendly plumber suggested that I be certain that the pipes hadn't frozen. I can take a hint. I emptied out the cabinet under the sink, grabbed the radiant heat dish, and started beaming the pipes. After half an hour, I employed the magic plunger one more time and woosh! , scary science project sink water got sucked down the drain. Now I've got flow in my kitchen sink once more (and a dishwasher of slightly clean dishes)...did I say I'm heading off to New Haven? Oh, and to keep you busy until I get back, how 'bout this?
Jennifer @ 9:14 AM link
Friday, January 24, 2003
Chiara takes a bath Nothing says, "Family" like going to the car wash together.
Jennifer @ 12:27 PM link
Alle spoke to me this morning about Olivia. “I remember when I used to be like her. I’d be finishing my homework in the morning before school.” “You’re different now,” I said. “Yeah, I’ve learned how to plan better. I like it this way.” “This is why it’s hard being a parent,” I told her. “I don’t understand.” “Well, as a parent you have to leave room for your kids to get frustrated. It would be easier for me to step in and take care of things myself, but then I rob my kid of the opportunity to figure it out for herself. Then I’d have a kid who thinks that whatever is wrong with her life is supposed to be fixed by other people.” “But,” Alle said, “then they get mad and they take it out on you.” “Part of my job is to make sure that doesn’t happen. Like with you, I let you get frustrated and I try to support you in finding your own solutions. Of course, I’ll always be there for you if you need my help, but neither of us benefits if I’m always fixing everything for you. And I’m committed to not letting anyone be mean to me…even my kids.”
So now what? I am frustrated in my own life. Frustrated with myself. I keep trying the same things, believing the same half-truths, hoping for a different outcome. At the core of this is the one Big Lie: there is something outside myself that will make it all better. It’s easy for me to see the places where everyone else falls into this trap. In my own life, however, I can be dancing around with distractions for days before I realize my general malaise comes from being lonely for myself.
Yesterday, in an IM conversation with Deb, I told her that I’ve reached new heights. I have developed distractions to divert my attention from the things I usually use to distract me from work. And then I began to wonder, if I did it totally right, wouldn’t I be using work to distract me from the distractions that I use to distract myself from everything else? Isn’t that they way a workaholic is born?
As you can see, there has been too much caffeine and not enough emotional support to foster unbridled joy in my day today. I’m making a mental note right now: Be kind to yourself; listen to your heart; and leave all the frustrations for everyone else.
Deb recently got a digital camera and has begun to explore the possibilities for self expression. I'm trying not to read too much into the unconscious messages these pics hold...I think it's safer for all of us this way. I will say, however, I think she shows signs of a brilliant future in food photography.
Jennifer @ 7:54 AM link
Saturday, January 18, 2003
Still walking around ranting and raving, hoping that I can stop caring about everything. I met two wonderful people this morning, an art appraiser and her husband, and that picked up my mood. Mom made the observation that the beauty of the Christmas Can of Cheese isn't captured in the weblog picture. She thinks it's an issue of scale. You know how much I want to please my mother, so just to amuse her I set up this picture. I call it, "the baby cheezus"
Jennifer @ 4:06 PM link
Friday, January 17, 2003
What can I say about the events of the last few days? I’m wrung out and for a while there, I was losing my sense of humor. Certainly, nothing would kill me faster than that. So, to perk myself up, I brewed a big ol’ cup of java love and took to tearing up pictures. And it’s just like magic! I do feel better. P.S. See Mom? I'm smiling!
Jennifer @ 4:14 PM link
Thursday, January 16, 2003
Our Lady of Perpetual Pixels. So I'm having a good hair day, is it a crime to record it for all posterity? (I can hear my mother say, "Why aren't you smiling. When you smile you light up a room.")
Jennifer @ 1:53 PM link
Friday, January 10, 2003
You know when you meet someone and it feels like you’ve met before? Or maybe it feels like you should have known them already because it’s so easy and comfortable? I was thinking about this, what causes that to happen.
Here’s a theory. Maybe the person has the parts of me I haven’t openly learned to love yet. It’s easier for me to sense them in someone else and hold them in esteem. I think these qualities are still outside of me and I long for them. Hanging out with that person feels so good. Our interactions offer me an opportunity to recognize these qualities (in someone else) and appreciate them more fully. Awareness. That’s the first thing.
Another part of it is encountering the parts of myself that I already unabashedly love. Meeting someone with whom I share beliefs, makes it so much easier to fill the space between us with the fun stuff. I’m at a point in my life where I’ve learned enough to know some things about myself in all certainty. I’m not saying anyone else is wrong. It’s just that the interactions can go deeper if we’re beginning from a larger basis of commonality.
An easy mistake for me to make is to think that the other person is magical. It’s all about them. I’ve started to understand that what I really like is, only in part, the person. It’s also the way I feel when we interact. I crave those interactions that feed me. Not just the ones full of big words and ephemeral ideas. Besides that, there’s something so wonderful about having someone to pet.
Conversation this morning: Alle: Mom, am I grounded? Me: Why? did you do something you weren't supposed to? Alle:NO! I meant, my energy, is it grounded? I'm feeling more connected to the earth now... Maybe I should have actually read those books on parenting.
Jennifer @ 9:47 AM link
Thursday, January 09, 2003
On the phone with Mom this morning...she was very defensive about the Christmas Can of Cheese. She said, "I brought it for a reason. I thought we could all enjoy it with tortilla chips. Then I would always be remembered as Nacho Mama." Now do you understand why I turned out the way I did?
Jennifer @ 11:54 AM link
I feel this rumbling inside my stomach and despite the fact that it's pre-breakfast, I know it has nothing to do with hunger. Not physical hunger anyway. Trust me, it has nothing to do with this:
Jennifer @ 7:59 AM link
Monday, January 06, 2003
"Past performance is not an indicator of future gains." Thank you Deb for pointing this out.
Jennifer @ 3:02 PM link
Sunday, January 05, 2003
The snow storm on Friday was a gift from the Heavens. Deb and Julia holed up with us for two days. We ate, we drank, we sat by the fire and knitted. It was a wonderful vacation from the world. Deb and I (and later Jessye and Alle) watched all of Brideshead Revisited on DVD. I'd seen it when it originally aired on PBS in 1981 and I'd read the book at the same time. There is so much there for me to reflect upon, and I will as soon as I finish folding the mountains of laundry. Until I have sifted through the socks and my thoughts, there are two scenes I want to remember. The first is Charles, when discussing his first summer with Sebastian, says, "I was having the childhood I was intended to have." What struck me about this is that I often feel this way now when I am with my closest friends and loved ones. When Deb and I are fantasizing about turning the Christmas Can of Cheese into a lamp, or when Lisa and I are wandering through the halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art enveloped in the sense of awe appropriate of eight year olds. The second quotation also comes from Charles and is also about Sebastian..."To know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom." As the six of us cared for each other, navigating the sometimes placid and sometimes choppy waters of our combined personalities and habits (Julia only eats peanut butter sandwiches. I am driven insane by the rustling of candy wrappers. Chloe and Peaches' dog fights for prime lap space...) I was struck by the meaning of family. As Sebastian the dipsomaniac searches under the bed for his German lover's cigarettes, I see how by caring for the needs for another person, his has been given a reason to continue living is excrutiating life. Nancy T. told me, "when you get down to it, all this is really about is relationship." I am so grateful that my life overflows with relationships which feed me so well (and Deb, although I'm not talking about the chili, the stratta, the lasagne, or the chocolate chip cookies, they definitely help.)
Jennifer @ 5:54 PM link
Thursday, January 02, 2003
Listening to NPR this morning and I was struck by the story about fighter pilots being given dexedrine, or "go pills". The pilots involved in a bombing which accidentally killed 4 Canadians attibute the use of "go pills" for their judgement error. My favorite part of the story is where the Air Force, who does not dispute their use of the the pills, defends the practice by claiming it is a "fatique management tool" available for voluntary use. My biggest question is what are they using as a "reality management tool"?
Jennifer @ 11:59 AM link
