Put a frame on it and call it art

I have spent most of my life trying to define art. Before you scoff, I challenge you to define art. Go on, try it, I dare you. Is it beauty to you? Is it something that evokes an emotional response? Is it line, shape, color, composition? Is it materials, texture, dimension? Is it sound, movement, light, the absence of light? Do you need any of those things to call something art?

What would you say if you drove around a curve and saw an entire mountain wrapped in orange silk? What if you heard someone singing opera in a subway station? What if you heard of someone who shot himself in the arm in front of an audience? Are those things art?

Does it have to be old to be art? If so, how old? Can it be two seconds old and be art? Do you have to be able to hold it in your hand or hang it on a wall or put it on a pedestal? Does it have to look like something you recognize, such as a man's face, a rearing horse, a naked woman? Is it art if you listen to it from the bleacher seats in a huge stadium with sixty-thousand screaming fans instead of on a vinyl record in your living room? Is it art if it self-destructs ten minutes after you bought it for a million dollars?

See what I mean? It's not that easy to define art. Art is what you say it is. What you say is art might be different from what I say is art.

I have my personal definition of art. Art is what I want to make. What is not art is what other people want me to make. For example, if you say, Hey, Carol, I really like your drawings. Can you draw me a cartoon of my mother riding a unicorn that I can print on a t-shirt to give her for her birthday? Or, maybe, Hey, Carol, you write funny stories. Maybe you should write a story about a specific topic for a magazine. You might even get paid.

I could say yes to both scenarios, but they would be jobs, not art. I'm not against jobs, but at my age, I'm just not that interested. I have chased money with my half-baked art ideas many times in my life and ended up poor and dissatisfied. Now when I make art, I may end up poor, but I am never dissatisfied. Some artists have a clear alignment between the art they make and the art the market wants. I envy them. They are the lucky ones. I have not yet been that lucky.

I'm tired, not thinking clearly. Summer came and went; I blinked and missed it. Tomorrow is the final day of September. The early onset of fall has prompted me to revive my rice-filled foot warmer. My next chore is to put plastic on the inside of all my east-facing windows. It's time to batten down the S.A.D. hatches with the therapeutic light box. The vertigo is ramping up as the temperature drops. I can't quit now, just because the days are growing shorter. My mother still needs me. Here we go into the dark tunnel, going to hell in a hand-basket.

The Chronic Malcontent should not become a car mechanic

I'm bone-dog weary, but I keep slogging through the days. On the bright side, sunshine! On the dark side, dementia! Life is a balance sheet of debits and credits. I add up both sides and think I've got things figured out. Then pink eye! (Mom, not me). It's always something, even when I don't know what it is. We all know how the story ends, but how we get to the ending is the part that puts hair on my chest. And upper lip. And nostrils.

After our visit to urgent care to get the pink eye diagnosis, my mother called me to tell me one of my headlights was out. That was nice of her. Even more impressive, she remembered to call me even after trudging the three-minute hike back to her room, fifteen minutes after having a cigarette, which typically temporarily erases a good portion of her brain cells.

I went to the auto supply store yesterday to buy new headlight bulbs and new wipers. As I pulled out my debit card, I kept waiting for the clerk to offer to install them for me, at least, the wipers. They've done it in the past for me, in a fraction of the time it usually takes me to do it. It's not like there was a line, but apparently he didn't want to go outside. So off I went, $47.00 poorer with some trepidation about what would come next.

I had previously checked YouTube for a video that would show me how to replace a headlight bulb in a decrepit old Ford Focus. Videos abound. When I backed my car into my usual parking spot in front of the laurel hedge, I felt well equipped with the knowledge of headlight replacement. I gathered my tools: gloves, basically. The nice mechanic on the video said don't touch the bulbs with your bare hands. I pulled on my lavender rubber-palmed gardening gloves and smacked them together in anticipation of success to come.

First, I optimistically opened the package of new headlight bulbs. Then I yanked on the hood release and managed to get the hood up and onto the support stick. Next, I peeled off the rubber gaskets that covered the headlight assembly, thinking eeew, these things look remarkably like dusty black contraceptive diaphragms. I set them aside. A fleeting thought crossed my mind: I hope I will remember to replace them when I'm done.

I reached my hand into the space by the left headlight assembly. There I encountered my first problem, I mean, challenge. The guy in the video seemed to have a lot more space to maneuver than I was finding in my car. I could barely get one hand in there to try to loosen the plastic retainer ring holding the bulb in place. I could feel the ring, though, so I persevered.

The ring wouldn't budge. I tried one hand, then the other hand. If I could only get both hands in there! I tried to picture my mechanic undertaking this task. Nuh-uh. Not going to happen. Maybe I'm doing this wrong. I switched to the other headlight, and twisted the ring. It came off easily and fell down into the engine compartment.

I stared down into the depths of the engine, feeling my heart rate go up, and wondering what would happen if I pretended like that hadn't happened? Would the ring melt and start a fire as I was cruising along the freeway? Would the car even start?

“Failure is not an option,” I muttered. I left the hood up and went into my apartment, seeking inspiration. I grabbed a 36-inch metal ruler, a roll of duct tape, and an X-acto knife. The cat looked askance at me as I hurried back out the door.

When I returned to the car, I looked into the engine, trying to find the ring, but my eyes weren't adjusting to the bright sunshine. I couldn't see a thing, just velvety darkness. I rummaged in the glove box. Where the heck is my flashlight? Don't I have a flashlight? Note to self: get a flashlight!

I was going to run back into the apartment for a flashlight but remembered the Multnomah County Library keychain flashlight I had received at 2017 Wordstock. I clicked the tiny button and shone the LED beam into the engine. Yep, there it was, that stupid ring, sitting on a horizontal surface much closer to the ground than to the hood. Too far for me to reach, even if there had been room to insert my arm into the narrow space.

I shoved the metal ruler down toward the area where the ring was sitting, hoping I wouldn't dislodge something essential, like, I don't know, the engine. I applied my former skill as a golfer to putt the ring toward an opening where I thought it could potentially fall down onto the ground. After some tries, success! The ring fell on the ground. I bent down, reached under the car, and snatched it up triumphantly, holding it aloft like a trophy. I glanced surreptitiously at the diners eating at the tables outside the cafe across the street but nobody was watching.

By now I was a good twenty minutes into the job and I hadn't even managed to remove the old headlights. Nevertheless, I persisted.

I yanked out the old bulb assembly from the right headlight. I removed the old bulb from the thingamajig that it plugged into, you know, the thing with all those scary looking wires no doubt leading to my car's electronic brain, if it has such a thing, which I doubt. I tossed the old bulb into the trash. I inserted the new bulb into the thingamajig and poked it back into the hole leading into the headlight area. It did not slide in as easily as it popped out.

Did you know you can look through the headlight cover and see from the front what your hand is doing from the back? I poked the bulb into the hole and watched from the front as it refused to line up. And kept on refusing. What the heck?

Now I'm sweating and my back is aching from bending over the front of the car. I straightened up and stared at the partly cloudy sky. Briefly I thought, too bad I can't enjoy this lovely day. Looking for a miracle, I switched to the other headlight, thinking, I don't know what I was thinking. I was in a state of low-grade panic, you know the feeling, where your brain is one stresser away from shutting down and forcing your body into the fetal position?

I used my right hand to try to loosen the plastic ring. It came off immediately. I figured out that unplugging the thingamajig with the wires was the easiest way to get the ring off. Wish I'd figured that out for the other side! Now I could take out the old bulb and insert the new one. It worked! Now to get the ring back on. Wait, which way does it go?

I tried it one way, I tried it the other way. Finally, something clicked. The ring went on. I turned it a bit to lock it in place, reattached the wire thing, and voila! Success. Now to replicate my success on the other side.

I wrestled for many long minutes before I finally got the bulb into the socket, the ring on and tightened, and the wires plugged back in. Wow. What an ordeal.

I was ready to close the hood when I remembered the plastic covers. Whew. They were a lot harder going back on than they were coming off, but finally I got them back into place. I shut the hood. I noticed the hood was slightly askew. Wha—? I opened the hood again and found I'd shut the old bulb from the right headlight into the space where mechanics typically lay their tools, up by the wipers. I grabbed the bulb and tossed it in the trash with the other one.

Now the moment of truth. I put the key in the ignition and started the car. In bright daylight it was hard to see, but it appeared that both headlights were working. The test would come when I visited Mom in the evening.

My next task was to replace both front wipers, which I managed to do in record time (like 10 minutes). I think I was still riding my competence high. You know how that is, when you accomplish something you weren't 100% sure you could do and then you feel like you can run a marathon or make a cold call? If I could bottle and sell that feeling, I'd be in Tahiti right now. Assuming no hurricanes or typhoons were headed for me, of course.

Now I feel like I should vacuum my car out and get it washed. What is up with that? You fix one thing, suddenly everything needs fixing. Just a few minutes ago, I dusted some shelves and suddenly had the urge to vacuum. That compulsion can go on indefinitely. Next thing you know, you start looking for a new apartment.

Tonight I'll go visit Mom and take her outside with her smoking buddy so they can have their after-dinner cigarette. Mom's eye is looking much better, thanks for asking. I'm ready for rain, darkness, and whatever else might be headed this way.

Coming soon: A future without facts or truth

I don't know what is real anymore, with all the falsehoods flying around the zeitgeist. Americans can't seem to agree on the facts. Can I trust the calendar posted on the Internet? Is it really almost the end of 2016? Maybe, maybe not. I'm sure if I forced enough fake news on Facebook, I could convince some people that it's still October. Or that we have a new month now, the month of Terrorary. The month of Muck. The month of Run Them Down. We all know who "them" is.

It's not a great time to be anything but rich, white, and male. I want to lament, but what good does that do. It just makes me one of the whiners. And we all know, nobody likes a whiner.

The next four years will be good practice for weathering the apocalyptic effects of the many impending disasters looming on the time horizon (earthquake, solar flare, cyber hack of the electrical grid, sea level rise, volcanic eruption, tsunami). I need to learn to suck it up. It would help to have a tent, camp stove, and sleeping bag, I suppose. And some MREs stashed in a tote bin. What can I say. I'm not ready. I've never been a prepper. I worry a lot, like a prepper, but my fear paralyzes me, so I'm unable to take action. I sit in paralysis like the proverbial frog in hot water, too scared to leap out before I'm parboiled. I won't be a survivor. I can't say I'm too sad about it.

But I'm not ready to go quite yet. I need to survive just long enough to see my mother exit the world stage. I wouldn't abandon her, not by choice. Fear of the future makes me gag sometimes, but we all know what is coming. She's going to die, someday. I don't know how or when, but I know it's coming.

After she's gone, I don't really care much what happens to me. Depending on how much money I have left (if the banks aren't belly-up by then), I'll probably move somewhere where it's warmer, just in case I end up sleeping outdoors. I don't expect to see 80, but who knows.

Maybe when the Chinese-Russian alliance takes over America, we will all finally relax. Let someone else be in charge for a while. The nursinghomes will be full of old white American prisoners of war clamoring for organic gluten-free dinners and internet access, even though we won't remember in five minutes what we've eaten or how to access the future equivalent of Facebook. Torturing us will be useless: What can you learn from people who think they deserve to have whatever they want without paying for it?

You can't reason with Americans. Most of us don't care that our activities for the last 50 years have destroyed a good portion of the planet. Have I stopped driving my fossil-fuel burning Focus? No. We don't learn. Don't bother picking our brain, Russia. There are no state secrets among us except how to get the best deals on Black Friday.

Celebrate! You fail at life.

Finally, there is an official Meetup in Portland for failures. It's called FailPDX, and last night was its kickoff meeting. I heard about it through a random Meetup promo email. The name made me curious. Within a few days, 50 people had signed up. I checked again before it was time to leave: 96 people were planning on attending. Wow.

I left a little early and avoided the freeway, anxious that I wouldn't be able to find the place, afraid I wouldn't find close parking on the dark streets of Old Town Portland. The Meetup was inside a multistory building that stood out in the close-in downtown neighborhood for not being a renovation of a 19th-century monstrosity. The entry lobby was wide, lined in marble and mirror, and behind the security desk was a 30-foot wide, 15-foot tall backdrop of bright green living plants, somehow adhered to the wall from floor to ceiling, glowing under grow lights. It was lovely for its greenness and for the intense artificial sunlight. I was thinking that a security job in front of that backdrop might actually not be that bad. (Remind me of that later, would you?)

On the fifth floor of this building was a series of unfinished offices and open spaces. In the widest open space were easily 60 black padded chairs arranged in rows facing a big screen, which showed the Oregon State versus Ohio State football game in luscious detail. To the right, cafeteria style tables and chairs took up much of the rest of the space. Another huge screen also showed the football game. Smaller flat panel television screens hung from the ceiling, all showing the game. The place reminded me of a gym: The only thing missing were the rows of treadmills and perky people in spandex.

The space was vast. Black windows on the left looked down into the atrium of the lobby. Windows on two other sides looked out on the lights of Portland's downtown freeways and bridges. I imagine the view is spectacular during the day. At night it was just a dark blur of lights. Or maybe it was my eyes.

A couple guys greeted me in a friendly fashion and rushed away to fiddle with the microphones at the lectern. “Food is on the way!” Sure enough, food arrived shortly. I parked myself in an out of the way place and tried to figure out which screen to watch.

A young woman came up to me and greeted me as if she knew me.

“How are you!” she exclaimed.

“Good, good, and you?” I replied, frantically going through my mental Rolodex, which is as slow as a real-life Rolodex.

“Who are you with now?” she asked.

I assumed she meant who was I working for, not if I was in a relationship. “I'm not sure you know me. I'm a freelance researcher.”

She looked flustered so I continued on, “What do you do?”

“I'm in data science,” she said belligerently. “I own my own company.” I wondered if she was belligerent because she was short.

“Oh, how nice,” I said. “What does your company do?”

“We help companies bla bla bla with their bla bla bla and then bla bla bla.”

I'm pretty sure it only seemed like she was saying gibberish. “Isn't that something,” I said.

“We just opened last year,” she said defensively.

“Oh, where are you located?”

“We are working from home right now,” she said though tight lips.

“No worries,” I reassured her.

“There are only three of us,” she admitted reluctantly.

“You gotta start somewhere,” I said encouragingly as she pretended to see someone she knew and rushed away. Whoa. Did I just meet a failure? It's hard to know sometimes. I turned back to the screens in front of me, examining each in turn in a futile hope that one might be showing something other than young athletes in helmets and tight pants running up and down a green field, then attacking each other and falling over in writhing clumps.

A little further along the wall where I was leaning tensely, I realized there was an actual built-in bar where people could get free wine and craft-brew. A crowd of people were milling there, talking and watching the game. Of course, I avoided it all.

An older guy with long gray hair and a gray beard walked past from the direction of the elevators, nodding to me as he went past. A few minutes later, he was back, carrying a glass of what looked like water. No color, no bubbles. He was thin and wore Levis and glasses, like me. I stood up straighter.

“You look smart,” he said as he approached me without quite looking me in the eye.

“Looks can be deceiving,” I said inanely, thinking to myself, Why did I say that? Major fail!

“Looks are only deceiving to the easily deceived,” he said and then nodded at the television screen hanging above us. “Do you pay attention to this stuff?”

“What, the game?” I gaped, still trying to figure out if I had been insulted.

“Stupid past time,” he muttered, although I wasn't sure he meant the football game or the networking.

I stared at him in confusion. He still wasn't looking at me.

“What's your name?” he demanded.

“Carol.”

“Martin.” No handshakes. No nods, but I guess it was an exchange of sorts.

One of the organizers ran past and waved at us.

“Winds of change,” Martin mumbled.

“What change?” I asked.

“Every moment is new,” he said. A moment later he drifted away.

I moved in the opposite direction and found a spot at a table with an unimpeded view of the game. I pulled out my journal and jotted down a few notes, because I knew that later I would be updating my blog, and I would forget these special, surreal moments as they blended into a bizarre timeout from reality.

People are always interesting when you get them talking. Besides the belligerent spitfire shortstuff startup and the hippie throwback, I met a lovely young woman who recruits for the software industry and a fascinating woman who, as a local representative of the National Transportation Safety Board, investigates local aviation accidents. Wow! How cool is that?

Unfortunately, the show started before I got a chance to ask her more questions. An hour and a half later, I slunk out before the thing was over, bludgeoned by bad PowerPoints and worse speakers, and went home to find out the Ducks were toast. Welcome to FailPDX!

Random thoughts from a stinky cheese chronic malcontent

Bless me, Hellish Hand-basket readers. It's been over a week since my last blog post. My excuse is that I've been immersed once again in dissertation editing hell, editing someone else's massive, wretched, poorly written tome rather than my own. I've been diving deep into the quandary of social injustice in the State of Hawaii. The upside is that I know more than I ever knew about Hawaiian history, and have a whole new perspective into the world of social work (which consists of poorly paid people helping other poorly paid people perpetuate a nonprofit machine in which everyone is poorly paid while chasing charity dollars. I'm super glad I didn't pursue a career in counseling!) The downside is that, by the time I finished combing the wretched tome for extra spaces, misplaced periods, and renegade pronouns, I calculated I earned just over $16.00 per hour. Clearly something is wrong with my business model.

Today, with the wretched tome off my plate, I was able to hunt and gather at the local grocery store, put unleaded into my ancient, tired, dusty, fossil-fuel burning Focus, and put on a load of wash. I love multitasking, which to me means doing the laundry while cooking dinner while running a virus scan while talking on the phone. Look at me go!

The weather is weirdly awesome. It's currently 86° at PDX, which means some tropical pockets of Portland will probably hit 90° in the next few minutes before cooling back down to 60° overnight. While it's not unheard of, it is pretty unusual for the weather to be this warm in early October. I went for a trot in the park and soaked in the heat through my scrawny pale legs, wishing I could stop time before the leaves turn orange.

Yesterday I drove over to my mother's condo to help celebrate my little brother's birthday. He's turning... let me think, I guess he's turning 54. Yipes. My baby brother is over the hill. Guess that makes me over the hill and halfway into the graveyard. Well, no use complaining, especially where the really old folks can hear. Don't bother looking for sympathy from old people; that is like going to the garbage dump for bread.Two of the neighbors who came to the party, a couple in their mid-80s, sharp and caustic as ever, were not inclined to hear my brother whine about how his joints ache in the morning. I knew better; I kept my mouth shut.

Birthday parties never have amounted to much in my family. I'm not sure why. I have my theories. This party was relatively painless as birthday parties go—all of us were ready for a nap after barely an hour. I managed to leave all the cake and ice cream with my mother, although my digestive system paid the price today for what I ate yesterday. I think that if I'm going to get sick from eating cake and ice cream, the pain ought to be worth it. Like excellent tiramisu or German chocolate cake. Sadly, 'twas not the case.

It's hard to sum up life these days. From one angle, everything looks like crap. I'm barely earning, doing something I hate almost as much as I hated sewing and driving a school bus and teaching keyboarding, and I'm wondering why I seem to figure out what to do by doing everything I don't want to do first. I know I'm running out of time. The thought makes me want to give up and embrace my inner homeless person.

On the other hand, I'm not sewing, or driving a school bus, or teaching keyboard! Yay! On top of that, the weather is awesome, and while I don't have a steady job, well, I don't have to get up tomorrow and go to a steady job! No getting up early, no dressing up in a uniform, no worrying about my nose hairs and my blossoming sideburns. That's pretty great, don't you think? Actually, I think the longer I'm out of the workforce, the more unemployable I get, sort of like the opposite of a fine wine, more like a stinky cheese.

I would take all the blame for everything, but I think there might be something going on in the local economy. For example, the rental market is tighter than a frog's sphincter, and as a consequence, my friend Bravadita is dragging up on her cute apartment in downtown Portland in favor of shared housing in Gladstone. Her rent decreases in inverse proportion to her public transit commute, which extends an extra hour per day. I find it sad; I fear something similar will happen to me in the next year. My landshark and his wife could boot me out of the Love Shack, fix up the antiquated bathroom and kitchen, and easily lease it to some marketing wizkid for double the rent. I would find myself rooming with my mother, or possibly hunkering down in the Section 8 housing across the street from her condo, where police seem to be on standby.

It's an unsettling, unsettled, yet oddly fertile time. As I approach my 58th birthday, I don't have a whole lot of hope, but freefall is a surprisingly freeing state of mind. My life certainly doesn't look the way I thought it would. I aimed for Santa Barbara and ended up in Pacoima, figuratively speaking. Maybe more like, I aimed for Fiji and ended up in the armpit of Portland. Whatever. I'm trying to live fearlessly, and failing daily, but fearlessness is something to aim for, in the absence of job security and impending old age. The good thing is that since fearlessness is a state of mind, I don't have to leave home to find it.

I'm going to die penniless at 90

This is a great time of year to be homeless in Portland. Not that I'm homeless, yet, just saying. This is my kind of season: day after day of mid 80s to low 90s, fresh breeze, sparse clouds, unfiltered sun, and no rain... ah. Now if I could just get the relentless bass from the cafe's sound system, my neighbor's 1:00 a.m. cigarette smoke, and the invisible grass, flower, and tree spores and pollen to stay outside, everything would be perfect.

Well, almost perfect. I spent the past two days editing a chapter in some guy's music history dissertation, which isn't so bad, compared to some other topics, I guess. (Imagine how I'd be raving if it were... I dunno, The Lived Experience of Autistic Computer Geeks With Co-Axial Redundant Router Tendencies. Actually, that sounds sort of interesting. I just made that up. I have no idea what it means.)

English is the dissertation author's first language, thank the editing gods. So it could be worse. The truth is, I just don't like editing papers. That saddens me for two reasons: First, editing is the work that is coming my way; I can't afford to say no. And second, I'm apparently good at it. I got some praise from the dissertation guy. My reward was the opportunity to edit his next chapter. Lucky me.

Just because you are good at doing something is not a sufficient reason to do it, in my opinion, especially if you hate doing it. Learned that one the hard way when I made my living sewing clothes for ten years. I'd rather live in a chicken coop than do that again. Ditto for driving a school bus. Or working in a nursing home.

Speaking of nursing homes. No, speaking of chicken coops. No, speaking of not liking to do something but doing it anyway, yesterday I drove downtown to go to a local marketing luncheon. I parked 10 blocks away (free!) and hiked along the dusty streets. I wore loose black linen pants, a loose white linen shirt, blister-inducing sandals, and a straw hat on my head to ward off the mid-day sun. I carried a water bottle in case I got heat stroke.

The event was held in a brewery. The smell of yeast and hops was delicious. True to form, I was the first one to arrive (I have a chronic fear of being late). I selected my personalized name tag from the stack by the door. I wandered over to peruse the artwork on the huge brick wall: $1550 for a 30" x 40" unframed canvas caked with paint in a style I could best describe as preschool abstract. Is the artist actually selling this stuff? Jeez. Maybe I should have kept on painting. Oh well. I sat down at a table near the front and watched as the presenters arrived and began milling around the laptop on the lectern, fussing with cords.

A young blonde woman wearing what looked like a shirt-waist throwback to the 1950s but what was probably the height of current fashion hesitantly approached me. “I think we need this table,” she said.

“Would you like me to move?” I asked. It was a table set for seven people. Surely, I thought, there would be room for me.

“Please,” she said.

“No problem.” I gathered up my stuff and relinquished my seat, taking my water glass with me. Take that, you table usurper. I looked around the big empty room. So far, there was one other guest, sitting alone at a table near the back. I had on my reading glasses, so I couldn't tell if the person was male or female, but it didn't matter to me. Rather than sit alone, I wove through the tables and sat down in the chair to the person's right. He/she/it turned out to be (according to his own labeling, offered quite early in our conversation) a gay Jewish writer, recently of Albuquerque, whom for purposes of this discussion, I will call Eli. He handed me a business card without hesitation. I reciprocated, feeling very professional.

The table soon filled up with other guests. Eli handed his cards around to everyone, and even leaped up once or twice to hand his cards to people passing by, making me feel slightly less special, but reminding me that this was a networking event, after all. I wasn't here to make friends. Or eat the food, although I arrived hungry, well, starving, really, and had set a strong intention to eat whatever I could get my hands on.

A woman about my own age wearing tan capri pants, strappy white sandals, and a white blazer sat down in the chair to my right. How does she keep it all clean, I wondered.

“What do you do?” she asked me.

“I'm a marketing researcher,” I replied, ready to hand her a card.

“Oh, so am I,” she said and abruptly turned to the man on her right. She never spoke to me again.

I paid $30 to eat barbecued pulled pork, baked beans, salad, and tofu. During the meal we were educated-slash-entertained by a local marketing guru, who waxed philosophical about innovation while strutting in front of strikingly designed yet obtuse messages arranged on 20-foot tall PowerPoint slides. As far as I could tell, the purpose of the slides was to serve as artsy backdrops for the man in the gray three-piece suit, while he blathered about innovation. I did my best to listen. At first I was mildly fascinated at how he seemed to have prepared the speech so well that he needed no notes. Was it memorized? Was he reading off cue cards? Was he speaking extemporaneously? And what the hell is he talking about?

I usually take notes when I'm at an educational event, and if I can't figure out what to write, I draw pictures: diagrams, arrows, big puffy words, caricatures... the images you see in this blog, for example. Doodling helps me listen. I try to keep my notebook hidden in my lap, but sometimes people see what I've drawn and feel compelled to say something: I couldn't help but notice your drawings. You're very good. You should put those on t-shirts. Yeah, thanks. Maybe you're right. Nothing else I'm doing seems to be working.

Near the door, on the way out, I connected with the president of the local marketing chapter and expressed my interest in volunteering. I've filled in the website registration form. I've emailed the volunteer coordinator. Now I've personally informed the president of the chapter. I don't know what else I can do, so I'll just let the universe take it from here. If I'm meant to volunteer, it will happen. I'm a little desperate: These marketers are members of my target market. Before they hire me, they need to know me and trust me. My best bet is meeting them in person through service.

A few minutes ago, I invited the president of the chapter and the writer to connect with me on LinkedIn. Within five minutes, both did. I guess people are using smartphones to manage their social network, unlike me, still slogging along on the pay-as-you-go, no-data-for-you-loser plan.

Someday my ship is going to come in. I know it. It may be a rubber dinghy, and it may end up crashing on the rocky shore of my financial ruin, but by god, when that damn boat goes down, I'm going to be on it.

Isn't a lovely day? Too bad I can't let myself enjoy it.

It's spring for another day in Portland, and then we are back to the norm (rain). Rain is our year-round season. The only thing that varies is the temperature and how much wind there might be. We have jokes in Oregon about the rain: Oregonians don't tan; they rust. It's close to the truth. Besides some rust, I have a fine layer of moss on my formerly black Ford Focus. I'm sure if I sat outside for a week, I too would be coated with a patina of green fuzz.

With my windows open, I can hear the season unfolding. Loudly. The intermittent buses might as well be driving through my living room; their roaring drowns out my music, my television, the birds twittering, the cat yowling. On top of that, something new: The modern buses are equipped with an external loudspeaker. From it, a mechanical female voice echoes all day and late into the night: The bus is turning. The bus is turning. I assume this announcement is to warn pedestrians, cyclists, and stray dogs that the driver is blindly turning left, so if you are in the crosswalk, you'd better scoot. Bus drivers are known for running down peds in crosswalks here, so this loud proclamation is probably a good thing. But I think it is influencing my dreams. Run! The bus is turning! 

My sister has been pestering me for a year to turn the Hellish Handbasket blog into an ebook. Now that the dissertation adventure is over, it seems like it might be time. Plus, I don't have any work coming in, my marketing efforts have ground to a standstill, and no potential employers are leaping to snap me up, so what else is there to do? When all else fails, write a book. When I was twelve, that was what I did to feel better. I wrote stories in pencil on notebook paper and bound the pages with yarn. Fun! But I didn't have to earn a living when I was twelve. Just so you know, this ebook will not be bound with yarn or anything else. E means electronic, but hopefully not invisible. Stay tuned.

Also, while I watch for the universe to nudge me in some direction, it's a good time to vacuum my rugs, dust my shelves, and clear the clutter. There's really never a wrong time to clean, is there? I could vacuum daily and never eliminate the dust, detritus, and cat hair. If you have allergy problems, visiting the Love Shack should not be on your bucket list.

Before I close this post, I should update you on the ant situation. I had a chat with my little brother (a grown man of 50-something), who owns a house with occasional ant challenges. When I told him I often find ants on the back of my neck, he was appalled. You know that funny moment where you suddenly realize that the so-called normal life you take for granted is actually completely unacceptable to a so-called normal person? I had one of those moments. All it takes is an outside perspective to shift one from “Sure, I taped my students' mouths shut with duct tape. Can't think why I didn't do it sooner.” to “What, you mean that was wrong? Ohhhhhhh, yeahhh, I guess I see that now.”

So, maybe I've been too lenient on these effing ants, is what I'm saying. I'd already attempted to take the offensive. However, the ant poison I made myself from Borax and honey did not do the trick. Maybe it was the container, maybe it was the concoction, I don't know. Last week, I caved and bought real ant traps at the grocery store. I deployed these fancy store-bought ant traps in various kitchen places and waited to see what would happen. I monitored them closely, hour by hour. At first, I saw nothing, not even a few curious scouts. Then one night last week, I entered the kitchen to refill my water bottle before retiring for the night, and I saw a swarm of ants mobbing one of the ant traps.

Was I gleeful? Actually... not so much. I should have been jumping up and down in a victory dance. But I wasn't. Instead, I felt guilt and sadness. What a reprehensible thing to do, tricking ants into thinking they'd found a viable food source for the queens and babies back in the nest. Instead, they will die a horrible death. And it's all my fault. I don't want to kill anything, not even ants. I feel terrible. But I am leaving the ant traps where they are. I can live with my guilt. But I'm done living with ants.

Give me your tired, your poor, your faculty sob story about for-profit vocational education

I guess after you work at a place for almost ten years, it's hard to let it go, even if it let go of you. I'm speaking, of course, about the career college that laid me off in May. Today Sheryl called me at 10:00 a.m., and I knew as soon as I saw her number in the caller ID window that something must have happened. She only calls me when something is going on at school.

“You won't believe what I just heard!”

“What?”

“Chandra Friggins just got fired!”

“What!”

I was dismayed, not because I care about Chandra all that much, but because she is my official contact person at the career college for my doctoral research study. What will this mean for me? (Everything always comes back to that important question when one is a crazy chronic malcontent.)

I was going to email Chandra tomorrow and ask her what I should do to motivate faculty to sign up for my study. So far only one person has signed up since the invitation went out to all the faculty last Monday, and she doesn't qualify. I'm panicking more day by day as I piddle around in my dissertation manuscript, making placeholders for data I haven't collected yet. Now I get why scientists make up data! I'm seeing failure looming on the horizon, only a few months away. Where, oh where, are all the faculty who care about academic quality? Am I the only one?

Now with this news, I suspect there's some serious sh-t going on at the career college—again—which explains why people may not be super eager to sign up. The news also makes me think interviewing any faculty who teach there is a really bad idea. What kind of responses will I get from people who are terrified of losing their jobs?

Sheryl just called again. Denny, our former boss, and my ace in the hole at the career college, called and told her that Chandra was fired as part of a “reorganization.” Now, anyone in business knows that reorganize is a euphemism for fire, suggesting more heads will soon be rolling down the hallowed halls.

I'm not sure what I'm feeling. Relief and gratitude that I'm not there, I guess. Imagine trying to teach under the karmic weight of all that negativity and fear. Maybe a little glee that the place is falling apart (See! I told you so!). But mostly I'm feeling extreme anxiety. Who will be my gatekeeper now? Should I contact her male counterpart (I think I've called him Fiend in the past. Maybe I need to come up with a new name!)? Should I contact the president of the college? What if he's being reorgged too? What if the whole place is closing? Can I find some of these faculty before they all drift into the obscurity of unemployment?

After almost eight years and $50,000, to have this doctorate unravel in the last four months seems unfathomable. Unbelievable. Unacceptable. After all the stress of toiling to get the concept approved, the proposal approved, the IRB application approved... Is it, maybe it is too soon to fret...wreckage of the future and all that...? No, you know what, no. It's not too soon to fret. I think it is past time to fret. I've been trying not to fret, but fretting is tearing me a new one much like wild fires ravage southern Oregon.

What I have is a classic marketing problem. I'm trying to sell something people don't want. If I were a celebrity... yeah, what if I were, uh, think of someone who is sexy and charming. Jeez, I don't know, I'm the last person to have a list of celebrities ready to mind. Back in a mo. Ok, got it. I had to Google it. Ok, imagine if I were...Oprah! Or... Clint! Or Cameron! Do you think for one minute that people would hesitate to participate in my study? No. They would be, like, I wanna do it, me, me, me!

Clearly I'm not cool enough, my study's not hip enough. I'm lacking the hipness factor. Oh, man. What about the sheer altruistic joy of helping a former fellow faculty member? What about the good feeling of sharing for a good cause? (What cause, you ask? The cause of saving or destroying for-profit vocational education, depending on what side of the fence you are on, I don't care which. Just tell me your story!)

Free iPod! Free iPad! Free coffee and donuts! The doctor is (almost) in! Tell me your story about for-profit vocational education. I promise not only to hang on your every word, but to lovingly type verbatim all your verbal tics and fillers, and then scrutinize them in detail to wring from your precious words every last drop of meaning, both mundane and profound. When will anyone ever again give you such devoted attention?

Who is responsible for this crazy life? Uh.. not me.

There is a fly in the Love Shack. Security! The cat in charge of security sleeps with his nose on his paws. Slacker. I can't bring myself to smack the fly. If I wait long enough it will circle lower and lower and eventually die on a windowsill somewhere. A metaphor for life, I guess.

Speaking of life, I had a fun slice of it today. I met Bravadita for coffee in Northwest Portland. Now that she lives downtown in a 3rd floor walk-up, she's taken on an aura of cosmopolitan glamour. She is utterly 100% cool. I mean, she was 95% cool when she lived on the East side, since she was only nine blocks from the River (I'm sixty-nine blocks from the River. At 82nd you are officially in the armpit of Portland. That is coolness of zero percent.) Now Bravidita is 100% cool as she walks everywhere with a stylish bag slung rakishly over her shoulder. So cool she wears a beret!

Time out. The security cat heard me tapping on the keyboard and came over to check it out, spotting the fly on his way to sit on my keyboard. A half-hearted swipe, wait, is that all? Come on! Security!

Well, anyway. Sitting at a wobbly metal table outside along 21st Avenue, Bravadita and I bemoaned the plight of artists and creatives who don't get things their way (us). There was plenty of commiseration to go around. The coffee amped me into high gear. I had an idea every ten seconds, followed by a plunge into darkest depression. Of course, all my ideas were for Bravadita's career, not my own. (Why is it so much easier to fix someone else's life?)

The security cat has failed to capture the fly, which continues to infuriate me by meandering in front of the computer monitor; the cat, however, has slyly captured my chair, so now I must stand while I type. Sigh.

I've conveniently chosen to prune the artistic part of my life so that it fits into a tiny box: this blog. I draw while I sit in meetings. If anything funny comes out of it, I scan the images and upload them here for your amusement. That is the extent of my art life. There was a time when I was positive, beyond any doubt, sure as only a ten-year-old child can be, that I would spend my life writing, drawing, and painting. And to a large extent, that has been my reality. What I didn't foresee, though, was that I would have a great deal of difficulty getting paid to do those things.

Hence... the jobs. Long jobs, short jobs, fun jobs, depressing jobs, I've had many jobs. I can say truthfully that there is not one job I would willingly go back to if I had a choice. Not one that I can say, wow, that was a really great job. The fault, I admit, lies more with me than with any of the jobs. A few were bad because of a particular person or a few people, but mostly they weren't bad at all. It was me. I didn't fit. I wouldn't let myself fit. Because there was somewhere else I wanted to be. Always somewhere else.

I feel lucky now that I've chosen to pursue a self-employment field that interests me. No, it's not art, but it's still interesting. I'm not a victim. I'm choosing it. I don't know if that will make it any more successful than any of the other jobs I've had, but if it fails, I'll know who to blame.

There goes that pesky fly again. Should I let him live? Or is it curtains for the fly? Text your vote to 3330 within the next seven minutes to determine his fate.

Do what you love and you'll probably starve... or not

The last time I had an entrepreneurial seizure, it did not go well. That was a long time ago (1981) in a galaxy far far away (Los Angeles). Now that I am staring down the barrel of unemployment, I remember my past self-inflicted self-employment massacre, and my terror is compounded. I wish they made bullet-proof vests to ward off attacks of idiocy. Maybe that is what aluminum foil hats are for.

Time out. My neighbor sounds like she is giving a fashion show to her dog. She's strutting back and forth on her hardwood floors in what I suspect is a pair of chunky-wood platforms. I'm too sexy for my shoes. I hope she is getting ready to go out.

Last night I heard her growling in the basement. I couldn't tell if she was just angry, or hurt and angry, so I ran down there to see what was going on.

“There's a quarter stuck in the washer,” she groaned, banging on the coin slot. While she ran to get a knife from her kitchen, I peered at the coin slot. Yep. Jammed good and tight. Wouldn't go in, wouldn't come out. No laundry tonight, Pumpkin. While she poked at the slot with the knife, her little gray poodle patted me repeatedly on the backs of my thighs with his front paws. I ignored the dog, and wondered if perhaps the human might use the knife on me, considering I interrupted her noisy coitus a couple weeks ago by pounding on the wall that separated my angry hammer from her headboard.

We both agreed the coin slot was a lost cause. I suggested she call the landsharks. We adjourned to our respective corners, if not friends, then at least no longer adversaries. Well, her dog likes me. That is a start.

I emailed the landsharks today, just in case she didn't, and earlier today I saw George in the basement, talking on his cellphone while he dismantled the coin box. I was leaving. He didn't see me. When I came back, he'd left a stack of quarters, and a note pointing out the one coin that wasn't actually a quarter. I don't know what it was. It looked like funny money. Maybe Canadian. I left it all there on the washer. I am content to be an observer. I only engaged last night because I thought she might have been injured. Or that she might have destroyed the washer. Actually, I don't know why I engaged. I guess it was a way of expressing my chagrin at interrupting her lovemaking.

Back to the main topic—me. My pending entrepreneurial experiment. I'm having some brain trouble. I can picture actions I need to take, and I've got lists in triplicate, but my brain can't seem to translate the actions I plan to take into actual income. In other words, I can imagine a bank account full of cash, but I can't see how my actions will put it there. I think I have a mental block placed there by years of flogging a business I hated. I used to sew clothes for a living—you could call me a former fashion designer or you could call me a former seamstress, and both would be accurate. The problem was that I hated to sew (still hate to sew), and thus I learned to associate earning with doing something I hated.

But that was years and years ago, way back in ancient times. Surely my brain has evolved since then? Or disintegrated? Or embarked on a new tangent? It's a new millennium, for crying out loud. Nothing is the same. Still, how I handle earning as an entrepreneur remains to be seen, and I know, don't call me Shirley.

Ten years of working for someone else has meant no hassles with invoices, collections, complaints, or worries about when the money will appear. Working for the career college is a different kind of earning mystery, where performing my teaching job has been totally disconnected from receiving my direct-deposited paycheck. Magic. As an entrepreneur, I will have to get my hands dirty again. I will have to initiate invoices, follow up with statements, ask for deposits, handle cash, figure out PayPal... it's all so... messy.

Well, the good news, I am strong enough to handle it, according to Dr. Tony, my ebullient naturopath. Yesterday he dosed me with some white pellets, yanked on my right leg (really!), and pronounced me whole, see you in two months, you are on the maintenance plan. And to really put a shine on the bright side, in three weeks, there will be no more commute to Clackamas, no more in-services, no more split shifts, no more nutty professors, no more whining students, no more outdated textbooks, no more clogged toilets, no more mismatched clocks, no more mind-numbing graduation ceremonies... No more. The few people I've grown to love, I will still stay in touch with after we leave, and the rest, all the rest of it, I am content to let go with my blessing.

May we all be free from suffering, and may we all find peace. Now let's break out that champagne!

My slip is showing again

It's been too long since my last confession, uh, I mean, post. I'm not Catholic, I don't know why I said that. I'm not anything religious, but that is another topic. What is on my mind today is—dare I say it, yes! I'll dare to say it. It's the wretched, beastly concept paper! This maggot-infested zombie of a travesty that simply will not lay down in its fetid grave and die, already. Argh! Now I know why people don't finish their fricking doctorates! The glacial pace of feedback, the millimeter per year of forward movement... I feel like the San Andreas. We all know what lack of movement leads to, and I'm not talking about constipation. Earthquake!

I have felt on the edge of something for a few weeks now. In strange moments of delirious tedium I find myself lurking at the back of the computer lab, doing deep knee bends while I watch my students pound on the keyboards. Maybe it's just a cold, but I suspect it is another bout of chronic malcontentedness, urping up from my depths like the cold roasted beets I had for lunch. I now associate inching through the term with inching through my concept paper. Interminable, endless monotony. I generally walk around wanting to scream. It's beyond malcontentedness now and into the spontaneously combustible zone. Don't get too close, you wouldn't want this to get on you when it blows.

Har har. Just kidding. I think. TGIF. I've spent the day blearily replacing my too-ancient (2006-2008) sources with shiny new ones, making sure all my sources are squeaky-clean (peer-reviewed), updating my annotated bibliography, and generally polishing this half-assed excuse for an academic paper to the bone, hoping it will finally pass muster. I've got two weeks.

Now I'm taking a break from the monotony to step back and engage in a well known teaching ritual, namely reflection. Look at me go, look at me reflect. It's not my normal state, self-introspection. Usually I don't like being that close to myself. I guess I fear I'll catch my own cooties if I peek around inside my brain too much. And I might rile up the evil dwarves that lurk in my mental caverns, who will then poke me with pick-axes, thereby reminding me of the excruciating painfulness of being alive. Poor me, I'm alive.

I am old friends with this feeling of frustration. This is nothing new. Every job I've ever had imploded because of this feeling. After nine years at the career college, I thought I'd escaped the meltdown, but it seems to have caught up with me at last. The only difference between then and now is that I was a lot younger then. My job prospects weren't nil ten years ago. Now I'm moving into the crone stage—you know, where my skin gets all thin and papery, and I can see the veins in my hands under the brown spots. Even more than the physical decrepitude is the mental yawning, the utter disinterest in pursuing anyone's dream but my own. The sure sense of entitlement that says, I'm old, I've earned it, so back the F off. Yep. Crone. And so what, you ask? Let me translate: One word: Unemployable.

I'm balancing on a sharp edge. If I slip, I die. Slipping looks like not finishing this degree. Slipping looks like being fired from my job. Slipping looks like living in my parents' basement—except dad is gone and mom doesn't have a basement anymore, so slipping looks like living in my car, which will be really hard because it is an old Ford Focus hatchback. Slipping is unacceptable. I can't slip. But if I do, what then? Freefall? Or freedom? Hmm.

I do my best work when I'm doing nothing

That is the conclusion I reached today as I trundled my way to Freddy's to replenish my empty fridge. Driving to the store is one of those mundane activities that allows my brain to roam free. My almost-ancient Ford Focus (Found On Road Dead, Fix And Repair Daily) knows the way. On autopilot, I can think about other things besides uninsured motorists, belligerent bicyclists, and kamikaze squirrels. For example, I think about my life and how it sucks. Today, instead of monitoring traffic, I monitored the current level of my malcontentedness. After pausing politely at a four-way stop, I heaved a series of angst-ridden sighs. I realized only one conclusion was possible: I should do nothing, because doing nothing is what I do best. I should just stop trying so hard to make things happen. As soon as I try to do stuff, everything goes to hell in a hand-basket.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend back in 1998. He was a Lyle Lovett look-alike, tall, tan, over-the-top charismatic, and an avid proponent of Science of Mind. I was tagging along after him, metaphysically speaking, searching for my own belief system. My quest wasn't working all that well. One day, after I had shared my typical morose viewpoint, he said, “Carol, you need to re-frame your questions.”

“What? What do you mean?” I asked, not really interested in the answer.

“Well, what question are you asking right now?”

“Uh—why am I such a loser?”

“See, that's what I mean,” he said with satisfaction, as if I were the data point that had just proved the validity of his scientific theory on success.

“Huh?”

“Well, if you ask the question like that, what answers do you think your brain will come up with?”

I stared at him with some resentment. I could see where he was going, but mostly I was annoyed with his obvious smug satisfaction. I hadn't felt that level of certainty about anything in a very long time. To have that level of conviction! I still don't know what that feels like.

Now, in 2012, I can hear his voice smirking in my ear: “Carol, what question are you asking?” And doggone it, it's the same damn question!

Some people say our brains are like computers. If that is true, that would explain why I keep getting responses from my brain like, “File not found.” Maybe my brain is just responding to the questions I ask. The answer to the question “Why am I such a loser?” can only start with “Well, Carol, the reasons why you are such a loser...” Which makes me think I should just stop trying to think my way out of my malcontentdness. I should stop thinking. I should do what I do best. I should do nothing.

The post should stop here for dramatic effect, but since no one will read this except my sister, Bravadita, and a handful of visitors from Russia, I will add a little more. I am too old not to know that I can't expect to sit around and do nothing. I know where that kind of thinking leads. It's sort of like waiting for the bus to come to my front door instead of going out to the bus stop. The only bus that will come to my front door is the short bus, if you know what I mean. And the only place it will take me is the looney bin, where, yes, I will get my three squares, a bed, and lots of time to think. Is that really what I want? Even my malcontented brain knows the answer to that question.

Words can hurt

Today I took time to take a trot in the park. A lovely spring day is not something to ignore around here, because we won't have one again for a while. Probably around July 5, if past performance is any indication of future events.

While I was standing by one of the open reservoirs, peering into the viridian water, wondering how well the filtering system screens out duck shit and tennis balls, I heard a voice berating someone for singing along to a Lionel Richie song. While I'm not a big Lionel Richie fan, I still am in favor of allowing a person to sing along to whatever music he or she enjoys. In this case, the singer was a boy, maybe ten or twelve, not yet pubescent, a bit on the pudgy side, with headphones and glasses. He and about six other boys were sitting on the warm pavement, resting beside their skateboards.

The berater of the singer was much older, a weathered, blonde man wearing a weird skateboarder wetsuit type outfit. He stood over the group, and made fun of the singing kid. And he just wouldn't quit. He called the kid a girl. (Horrors, god forbid anyone should be called a girl.) He said, “That song was shit the first time around!” The other kids laughed. The singer was obviously mortified, humiliated by the group leader in front of his peers.

I stood nearby, stretching my legs and glaring at the blonde man, wishing I could say something to him that would make him shut up, make him apologize to the group for being such a thoughtless jerk, but realizing that the boy whose creative self-expression I was wanting to support would not thank me, a pasty-legged middle-aged female, for intervening on his behalf in front of his crew. So I just walked away in disgust.

The incident got me thinking about turning points in the lives of young people, and how a few misplaced words can derail dreams. I can remember moments in my life when something someone said changed my trajectory—and not for the better. For example, I remember when my father told me, “Learn how to type so you'll have something to fall back on.” I was in my late teens, I think, still believing I could be an artist, still thinking the world was a friendly place for creative people. I didn't believe I would need a skill like typing. I rebelled. I didn't take typing in high school, but his words planted a message in my mind: Your art will not support you. Be safe, learn another skill. Why couldn't he have suggested welding, or horse-breeding, or something else outside the proscribed world of women? Sadly, I did eventually learn how to type, a skill which led to my impressment into the bitter estrogen-clogged army of administrative assistants, also known as secretaries.

Another crossroads moment came in college. It was 1975. One of my fellow painters told me painting was dead. It was all about conceptual art now, didn't I know, hadn't I heard? The tired world of physical canvases covered with paint was so pedestrian, so the opposite of avante garde. I was a very young 19. What did I know? Not myself, that's for sure. When I heard painting was a dead art form, did I think, hey, artists have been painting since the beginning of time, no way are they going to stop now? No. I had the same reaction I had when I was ten and my friends told me Mike Nesmith was the ugly Monkee. I tore all his pictures off my wall and cried my eyes out. When I heard painting was dead, I switched my major from painting to graphic design, and the rest, as they say, is the sad sordid history of my miserable art career.

I'm not blaming my dad. I'm not blaming my fellow classmate. I'm just pointing out that there are crossroads moments in the lives of young people, moments that offer them a choice, and if they are at all unsure about who they are, the words people toss out so carelessly can have a lasting impact. These people and their thoughtless words can change lives, and not always for the better.

So the next time you have a chance to tell a kid something, even if you think she isn't listening, please be careful what you say.

My life is the unfolding result of many small decisions

I went on an adventure this evening to downtown Portland. I seldom go downtown, although I used to spend a lot of time there. I went to Portland State University from 1974-1977. For a few months I lived in an old former hotel, the Marabba West student housing building (long since demolished), until I got mono and had to move back home. I loved being 19 and living in downtown Portland.

Tonight the city looked clean and new. I took the bus there and back, and marveled at the efficient transit mall with its light rail and streetcar tracks, part of the transportation web that connects the burbs to the core. The air was fresh. The rain was warm. The people kept their distance. I didn't get run over by an errant taxi, nor did I get accosted or shot at, and I managed to escape being pinned by a fallen tree. All in all, it was an excellent adventure.

Small decisions create my life. All the choices I've made are strung out behind me like fake pearls on a string, a trail of crossroad moments in which I chose a path and blazed a new step into the unknown future. I can look behind me and see the wreckage that got me to this moment. Where the path goes from here is anyone's guess. Actually, anyone else's guess is probably worth more than my guess. I see the path going over the side of a cliff into the swamp I fondly call You Fail At Life.

It just occurred to me, if I really cared about building traffic to this blog, I would probably write a different blog title. Something to bring people in and keep them here. Maybe something like, "How an introvert can live in an extroverted world." No, that's lame and impossible, how about, "How to be a natural woman." That would bring in some eyeballs, I bet. Except I have no idea what the post would be about. No, I know: "The secret to making a hundred and twenty dollars and fifty-three cents writing a blog about nothing." I'll try that on the next post.

Speaking of many small decisions, every day I check my NCU email for some sign that my chairperson is still alive, that I haven't been abandoned in dissertation limbo. Yesterday marked the end of the two week period the committee has to review my concept paper and give me feedback. I sent an email to my chairperson to that effect. I always copy myself on the emails so it looks like something is happening, even though it is just me sending emails to myself. At least I know the email system is working.

And suddenly, there it is. Between the last paragraph and this one, I logged in to the learner portal, and there was a message in the inbox: in the course room, the paper, returned, with comments. For a moment, my heart fluttered. My face flamed hot. I tried to prepare myself for the worst: bad news, lousy concept, inadequate method, stupid learner, hopeless case, give up, abandon ship. I downloaded the file and opened it, skimmed it.... that's it? There are seven comments. No comments on my method, just a few suggestions to make the concept of academic quality more clear. Wow. I'm stunned. I don't know what to think. Could it be that I might actually be allowed to pass this hurdle? The skeptic in me says there must be a catch.

Look, here's another one of those decision points. I'm ready to drive off the cliff into the swamp, even though it looks like I just received good news. The chronic malcontent has the last word.

What would I do if I knew I could not fail?

Whenever I feel backed into a corner by life, I ask myself this question. It's the key to my self-made prison door, at least for a few magical moments. What would I do if I knew, beyond any doubt, with total certainty, that no matter what I did, I could not fail?

When I ask this question, two things happen. First, the pressure on my chest lifts a little bit. I have given myself permission to make "bad" choices. The question promises me my choices will not lead to failure. That means there are no mistakes. All paths are valid, all paths lead to learning. Some paths may be less painful than others, but none can be considered a total loss.

Next, with the pressure off my chest, I begin to breathe more deeply, and with oxygen, my creativity begins to flow a little less sluggishly. Possibilities start to burble to the surface of my messy bog of a brain. The fear recedes. The prison walls fade.

For a few brief moments I am suspended in the great What-if. Through a haze of creative possibilities I see another version of myself accomplishing remarkable feats, creating fantastic images, bringing light to the grim twilight world, and being abundantly compensated—financially, emotionally, and spiritually. For a few heady moments I'm not me, I'm someone else, someone with creative power and fearless productivity, making art, writing stories, expressing my certainty. For a few moments, I am positive that everything I do will be a satisfying success.

Then my normal fearful self grabs the wheel and steers away from the cliff. Whew. Close one. I almost took a chance on myself. I almost let go of my chronic malcontentedness. What would I do if I knew I could not fail? That question is deadly. Asking that question can lead to change. And we all know what happens when we allow change to happen. Things aren't the same anymore.