Plumbing makes my world go round

My cat is hunkered under a chair in the bedroom, hoping the pounding and power tools will stop shattering our peaceful morning. I feel like doing the same. My vacation is almost over, and my landlord has called in a plumber. So much for peaceful relaxation. When I opened my bleary eyes at the ungodly hour of 9:00 a.m., staggered to the bathroom, and turned on the faucet, there was nothing but air. Where usually there is a reliable stream of hot water, nothing, only a gurgle, like a mirage, taunting me, as if to say, this is how it feels to live in another century. Or in an undeveloped country. How would you feel if you had to tote that water five miles from a well or a spring? City kid!

Come on. This is the 21st century. I know what would happen if I had to tote water. I'd die. Call me crazy, but I rely on running water. In fact, without the four modern conveniences—running water, heat, electricity, and internet—I'd shrivel up and die. You know how crazy I got when my internet was on the fritz. Seriously, have you ever counted how many times you wash your hands in the course of your day? I tell you, being able to flush the toilet is a gift from the plumbing gods.

A few minutes ago, my landlord George knocked on my door and said, “We can replace your bathtub fixtures at the same time we do the ones in the other apartment. Can we get to your tub?”

“Right now?” I gulped.

“In a few minutes.”

“Uh, okay.”

Gradually over the years, I have remodeled the space I live in (fondly nicknamed the Love Shack) to suit the whims and fancies of one cat. That means any window that has space for a window seat gets one. That means there are chairs placed just ... so, to make it easy to reach the food court. That means there are places to hide, things to climb on, and lots of rugs to tear up. That means there's a screened back porch with a perfect vista point on which to lounge and eyeball the neighborhood. There's even a cloth-covered office chair with a tall back that is super fun to perch on. (I would try it myself if my butt weren't so wide.)

There's a lovely window in the bathroom, over the tub, that looks out on prime territory for monitoring cats, birds, and the occasional stray dog. I built a cat seat, of course. What a marvel of engineering! An L-shaped contraption, all wood, painted a deep forest green, lining two walls while resting on the edge of the tub, and attached precariously to the windowsill by one tiny screw. Surprisingly (because I am not a carpenter), over the years, the construct has held up well, despite the regular pounding of my 15-pound cat's huge pile-driver feet (he's all muscle). Pat on back for Carol.

After George's knock on the door, I spent a nerve-wracking half hour disassembling the room formerly known as my bathroom. (Who knew you could get so much crap into a 5 x 8 foot space. If I had to, I could probably figure out how to live in there. Don't laugh, I once lived in a 10 x 10 storefront. I know what is possible.) It took me awhile to deconstruct the cat seat. It was wedged in tight. I had to cut off a piece to maneuver it out the door. Now it is parked in the bedroom, making that room impassable. But the bathroom is so empty sound echoes. Strange how it looks bigger with nothing in it. 

And here he is now, a big hulking guy named Eli, carrying a wrench. He makes my place seem tiny and cramped. I am reminded again that this is a one-person/one-cat apartment. Bang, thump, and now he's walking out the front door with a handful of corroded metal: my bathtub fixtures! Two minutes later I hear pounding, knocking, and sawing, in the bathroom of the empty unit next door. I go into my bathroom with my camera, planning to document the mess. There are two pipes sticking out where there used to be handles to turn on hot and cold. As I watch, they slide into the wall, yanked from the other side, like the disappearing legs of the wicked witch of the East. Plumbing and pounding and resentment: Oh my!

A shack of her own

It's amazing how much difference a little sunshine makes. I'm a new man. Woman. Whatever. Who cares, the sun is shining! What could possibly go wrong when the sun is shining? I spent the morning pulling weeds in the front garden, navigating the steps (yes, the same steps that tossed my mother like a stick doll, leaving her breathless and broken in the concrete step well), and saying howdy to all the pedestrian strolling by on their way to Mt Tabor Park to blow up stuff and watch the waterfront fireworks. My skin is tingling from too much sun. Skin cancer? Who cares! The sun is shining! I planted some squash and beets that have been languishing for weeks in the shade of my back porch. One volunteer sunflower nodded far above my head while I impersonated Pizarro, machete in hand, hacking at the undergrowth. Look there! Evidence that tomato plants really do reseed themselves! 

It's July 4, my own personal emancipation day. Nine years ago I left a lousy relationship. I packed up and moved all my stuff while he was camping for the weekend with his three teen-age sons. I took nothing that wasn't mine, except perhaps the stray cat. I moved to my present humble abode on the slope of the extinct volcano. I have never regretted anything about that relationship except starting it in the first place and waiting so long to leave it. Only two regrets in almost five years isn't bad, right?

When I first moved, I couldn't believe I had so much space to myself. A kitchen! An entire bathroom! A bedroom, for me? And a living room, a room in which to finally allow myself to live. Who cares if the place is dark, moldy, and drafty. Who cares if the most frequent bus route in the city lies fifteen feet from my bedroom window. Who cares that the bizarre acoustics of this corner allow me to hear everything, I mean everything, night or day. Who cares! No longer was I relegated to one corner, one stinky kitchen nook, one shelf in the fridge. My boxes finally had a home. 


I was slow to unpack, sure that something would go wrong. For months I expected a knock on the door and a gruff voice saying, no, you are too happy. You are not allowed to be that happy. We will have to kill you now. Whenever I was scared and feeling unsure what to do, I would ask Meme, the long-haired cat. He would say (in cat language), “Sleep! Eat! Play! Poop!” I did what he suggested, and gradually I grew to fill the space. 

Now, nine years later, I'm hemmed in on all sides by artwork, books, binders, photos, and 55 years' of knick-knacks, all sitting on shelves I built with my own hands. Some of the shelves are a little askew, not quite square, but they are multi-colored and embedded in the studs of the walls, built to last, built to hold the evidence of my life. I love my shelves. I love this shack. The fact that someday I will have to leave makes the passing days bittersweet. As the landlord begins the strenuous task of replacing all the windows in the building, I can see what will eventually come.

But today, life is good. My concept paper is put to bed—for one week, anyway, the sun is shining, and it's a day to celebrate freedom. Freedom from tyranny of all kinds. Freedom to live as I please. Freedom to be who I am. Freedom to just be. Just for today, even the malcontent is smiling.

Happy Freedom Day.

One person's mountain is another's mole hill, or something like that

You know how when you are out hiking and you see a hill in front of you, and you think, oh, if I just make it over that rise, then I'll be at the top. Then I'll have the world spread out below me. Then I can rest and enjoy the view. You know what I mean? And then you struggle to the top of the hill, and gosh darn it if there isn't another hill in front of you, an even higher one, that you couldn't see because it was hidden by the little one in front?

I just got to the top of the little hill. Yes, I'm pleased to say that I submitted the second draft of my concept paper to my chairperson today. I'm sure she'll have some edits, but for now, the thing is off my plate onto hers, and I hope she's hungry, because she's got 45 pages to read, not counting the annotated bibliography (which I bet nobody reads. I finally figured out the annotated bibliography is a drop-and-give-me-100 sort of exercise, designed to separate the whiners from the stoics. Stoics win.)

So what did I do after I got to the top of the hill? I felt strangely empty. I ran a couple errands in a haphazard, poorly planned fashion, and then I went home and took a nap. I wanted to keep sleeping. My head is full of June fog. Oh, wait. It's July now, isn't it. I guess I need to peel off June and see what barn or shed awaits me on the July page of whatever promotional calendar hangs on my wall. The weather was dull today, to match my brain fog and my mood. You'd think I would be elated, wouldn't you. Well, you would be wrong. For one thing, I'm a chronic malcontent. Elated is not in my lexicon of feelings. For another thing, look at my calendar. There are some massive mountains I must climb. This little hill was a gentle slope compared to what I fear is coming next.

I'm feeling anxious that this dissertation process is taking so long. I essentially re-wrote the entire paper (except for the annotated bibliography), so it was a fairly large undertaking. But there were many distractions along the way: work, cat, Mom... If I worked on the paper 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, it probably would have taken about two weeks. Maybe less. It took me two months of Fridays and half days on Saturday and Sunday. What's that, like twelve days? Yeah, that sounds about right.

I am so tired I can't think. I will finish this when I have some functioning brain cells.

How can I miss you when you won't go away?

Earlier today things were going pretty good. On track. Banking got done with a minimum of effort. People smiled. Laundry got done, all socks accounted for. It's almost like everything got done in spite of me. Do you ever have days like that? Like when all the traffic lights are green, almost like they were calibrated just for you.

Now it is much later. I spent the last eight hours working on my concept paper. Working? Try slaving. Try whimpering. Try pleading to the gods of for-profit education. Oh lord, kumbaya, will this dreaded zombie-like tome never go away?

My fingers are typing so slowly, it's like I'm in a slow-motion sci-fi movie. My head is full of fog. I don't know how much longer I can hold on. Fading... can't breathe.... go on without me...

Really. Go on without me. I've used up all my brain power for one day. I'm on vacation. I'm going to plug disc 3 of Burn Notice Season 5 into my computer and get lost in the world of burned spies and trigger-happy girlfriends. And if that doesn't work, I'm pulling out the big guns. Yep. Stand back and put on your bib: True Blood Season 4.

Tomorrow I will tackle the paper again. For now, it's show time.

All aboard the bus to Point Despair and parts beyond

Whenever I hit a roadblock in my writing, I open up the blog, my cry to heaven. The blog listens and doesn't talk back. Everyone should have a blog or two, for each of their personalities. Oh, wait, am I the only one with multiple...? Come on, you have a nest of mean, spiteful dwarfs in your mental cave too, admit it.

Speaking of personalities, yesterday I conducted an experiment on my six-person business management class. These are the healthcare admin majors, all women in their late 20s-early 30s, who (a) think they know all they need to know about business, having already taken the upper level organizational management class (a scheduling glitch), and (b) think that they will never need to know anything about business, because soon they will be employed at some big hospital, taking orders from a boss they don't like or respect, performing tasks they couldn't care less about, and waiting for the day when they can finally do what they want (hair designer, auto mechanic, photographer).

It confounds me that they would intentionally detour away from their dreams into the bleak corporate world of managed healthcare. I prostituted myself to the corporate world in order to survive, but it was never an intentional life plan! After they told me their plans to achieve their dreams, and bluntly told me (a) they didn't care about the material, (b) the class is a waste of time, and (c) they are only attending because of the attendance requirement, well, you can imagine how useless I felt. I gaped at them like a puffer fish. The first thing I said was, “I don't know what to say.” They all laughed.

So the next class period, I led them in a decision making exercise. Their mission: to decide how they wanted to spend the last three weeks of the term. We brainstormed a list of activities. I was the scribe. Predictable suggestions filled the board: Work on the course project. Skip the last quiz. Have the teacher give us all the answers to the last quiz. I wrote down everything they said, and added one of my own. (Do an activity of Carol's choice instead of discussing the material.)

When we ran dry of ideas, I asked them to vote on their top two or three choices. The winners: Go to the lab to work on the project, and Do an activity of Carol's choice. Wow. I sure wasn't expecting that. (And no, I did not allow myself a vote.)

Hence, yesterday's experiment. I proposed another decision making technique known as Six Hats Thinking, introduced by Edward de Bono. It's a colorful group technique that uses parallel thinking to discuss a problem and arrive at possible solutions. Each participant in the group wears an imaginary hat and assumes a role associated with the hat color. Accordingly, I made table tents with each color: White Hat (focuses on the facts), Black Hat (devil's advocate), Red Hat (emotional perspective), Green Hat (creative solutions), Yellow Hat (the bright side), Blue Hat (the facilitator), and I added one extra hat, Purple Hat (the ethical perspective). I figured I deserved some extra points for the cool table tents, if nothing else. (I should have made paper hats, darn, why didn't I think of that sooner?)

It would have been a great experiment with a different group. First off, two of the six students were absent. The four that were left eyed my table tents with skepticism. The hair stylist wannabe said, “I'm getting a bad feeling.”

“Where is your sense of adventure?” I asked, faking a smile. “Your sense of curiosity?”

She looked at me like I had dirty underwear on my head. Disbelief mixed with disgust. Ignoring her look, I took the Blue Hat tent for myself and let them each choose their hat color from the remaining tents, working off the premise that if you want a child to participate willingly you offer her a choice. (Do you want to wear the Monkees t-shirt or the Bob Dylan t-shirt?) They grabbed and fought over the table tents, and I waited, content to let the universe decide the outcome. When the dust settled, everyone had a table tent designating their hat color, including the two empty spaces where the absent students usually sat. We were a group, in spirit, if not in body.

As Blue Hat, my job was to facilitate each person's role, helping them consider the problem from the perspective of their hat color. I presented the first scenario: should Congress approve a national AIDS database registry to help researchers collect information to help stem the spread of AIDS in Africa? I read the scenario, and then waited. We all stared at each other. They could tell I was waiting for someone to say something.

“I don't understand,” said Yellow Hat.

“Your hat looks on the bright side,” I explained encouragingly. “What are all the positive reasons to create a national database of AIDs victims?”

“I don't know what you mean. I don't see any positive reasons.”

“Do you see any negative reasons? Maybe you can put on the Black Hat for a moment, since Ariana isn't here today.”

“What?”

Eventually we got a discussion rolling. In a few minutes, after some heated debate, Green Hat came up with a solution that satisfied Red Hat and Purple Hat. We were triumphant. I won't describe the other two scenarios, except to say the last one, on whether the Affordable Healthcare Act mandate requiring young people to purchase should be allowed to stand, brought out an immediate and emphatic “No!” from all parties the moment I finished reading the scenario. It seems clear I am the only bleeding heart liberal in the bunch, if not in the entire school. 


Tonight I only have two classes, one of which is another section of business management. The one student (yes, one student left standing) loves the world of business, intends to be self-employed, and slurps up all the information and stories I present. We leave the class still talking. We walk up the stairs still talking. He wants more. He's the ideal learner. He doesn't need me. I'm just a catalyst for learning, not the source. Suddenly there is hope. I'm not on the bus to Point Despair anymore. Somewhere along the route I transferred onto the bus to Acceptance Avenue. Maybe someday I'll make it onto the bus to Hope Harbor. That's iffy, though. It doesn't run nearly as often as the bus to Point Despair.

Time to give up hope for a new past

My friend often admonishes me to stay out of the wreckage of the future. That is always a good reminder. I have a tendency to fret about the things that haven't happened yet. However, I can see the advantage of this tendency, believe it or not, despite being a chronic malcontent. For all you chronic malcontents (and you know who you are), pay attention. For all you Pollyannas, think about it like this: If you know are faced with a decision, it is important for you to see all sides of your dilemma before committing your resources to an action. Ask a chronic malcontent to play the role of devil's advocate! We are naturally skilled at looking at the dark side. We can help you minimize risk. And we work for dirt cheap, too, because we don't see any point in asking for what our advice would be worth. See, who knew being a chronic malcontent had a bright side! Hire a malcontent today!

This morning I attended a workshop on... well, essentially the topic was Looking on the Bright Side, not in so many words. Fewer than a dozen people sat around a loose rectangle of old folding tables, staring out the window, at the ceiling, at the clock. Anywhere but at each other. Some of the people were well known to me, others were strangers. Didn't matter, old friends, new people... I kicked the legs of the table, feeling alien and out of place. I hate workshops where I can't hide out in the back of the room, drawing silly pictures in my journal. I draw pictures anyway, even if I have to be a visible member of the group, but I don't like it. I'd much rather do what my students do, and pretend like I can escape notice. Anonymity should extend to visibility, in my opinion. Like, please, ignore me, I'm not here. I'm not a real person, I just play one on TV.

As always happens when I think there is no purpose or meaning to existence, someone says something brilliant that nails me between the eyes, bringing me back to earth with a thump. Ouch. Busted. Today I heard someone say, “It is time to give up hope for a new past.”

This is me. When I'm not fretting about the future, I am dwelling on the past, trying to rewrite history, indulging in the if-onlys. (See a previous rant.) You know what I mean. Stuff like... If only I had finished college back in 1978, when I had only a year to go. If only I hadn't tried to make money doing something I absolutely despised (sewing), instead of focusing on my art. If only I hadn't spent so much of my life orbiting other people instead of creating my own space. Bla bla bla. The if-onlys get a bit repetitive after I've hashed and re-hashed them a gazillion times. (I'm sure there is a food joke about hash somewhere in there, but I'll let you imagine it. It will be a lot funnier that way.)

How much time and energy have I spent trying to create a new past? What a total waste.

Wait, time out for a song. I can't really express my angst while Michael Nesmith is warbling “Tumbling Tumbleweeds.” Too bad I can't sing, I'd serenade you. Hey, sing along with me! See them rolling along... pledging their love with a song? Wha? Tumbleweeds fall in love? Tumbleweeds can sing? I must have it wrong. I can never understand lyrics. (Like, Wrapped up like a douche, another loner in the night... come on, don't tell me you don't sing it like that.)

As bad as my if-onlys get, though, I have only to think of Mary to realize I got off easy. Mary calls me on the phone every two weeks and reads me excerpts from her journal writing. She doesn't want feedback. She wants the relief that comes from unburdening her soul to another human being, one who won't judge (out loud, anyway), won't criticize, and won't hang up on her. It is hard not to judge Mary. She is stuck in the past, blocked from evolving into a viable functional human by two events that have defined her life ever since. The first is the typical horrific account of child abuse. The second was some harsh words directed at her by her best friends in high school. (She's 45 now.)

Mary has been calling me for almost two years, every other week. At first, I was uncomfortable with my role as listener. I felt obligated to respond with appropriate noises, maybe offer a comment or two at the end of the tirade. Now I rarely make a sound. I play Mahjong, and as I click the tiles, her words become poetry, by turns poignant, stark, riveting, trivial. She's too immersed in her pain to hear how funny she is. She is crying to heaven. I'm just a channel, a conduit, through me straight to god. At least, that is what she hopes. (Since I rarely speak, I haven't told her that I'm a chronic malcontent whose personal philosophy skirts a fine line between fatalism, cynicism, and nihilism.)

Mary is trapped in an unbearable present, terrified of the future while hoping for a new past. Maybe there is another advantage being a chronic malcontent. No matter what I think or feel or say, I can never take it too seriously. If I ever stop laughing at my quirks and foibles, please take me out back and shoot me. I'm counting on you, don't let me down!

Oh, poor thing, you made it up the stairs and everything

So far this morning, in an effort to avoid working on my dreaded concept paper, I've cleaned the cat box, cleaned the human box (AKA the toilet), taken out the trash and the recycling, done a load of laundry, and roasted a batch of beets and a batch of yams. And it's not even noon! Look at me go, I'm a dynamo! Isn't it amazing how productive I can be when I'm avoiding doing the work that really matters. Remember the four quadants: Important but Not Urgent is the quadrant that always goes begging. I'm currently mired in the Important and Urgent quadrant. Yes, all this stuff needs to be done—eventually. It doesn't have to be today. I know what I am doing: I'm procrastinating by being super efficient. And, sadly, highly ineffective.

And before I start mopping the kitchen floor, I am taking time to blog. (Probably there is a 12-Step program for this malady, if I could figure out what to call it.)

Despite everything, even the chronic malcontent smiles sometimes. Two good reasons to smile today. First, today is the second day of summer. The sun is shining just like it is supposed to. The sky is blue, it's 67°F, on the way up to 85°F. Clouds will roll in tonight, according to Bruce Sussman, and tomorrow the temperature will drop like a stone as the clouds unleash rain and wind. But today, it's summer, and life is good.

Here's the second reason. I know life is good because I found a favorite sock I've been missing for weeks. Cotton, oatmeal-colored, super soft and comfy... not much use if there's only one. (Unless I get the flesh-eating streptococcal disease and lose a foot.) But somehow I knew that, unlike most of my missing socks, this one was going to come back to me. And sure enough, today I descended the steps into the normally dark basement laundry room and there, illuminated in a ray of sunshine that miraculously found its way behind the washing machine, was my AWOL sock, resting on the concrete floor in a nest of dust and detritus.

It reminds me of how I got the job at the career college. (Yes, it resembles a nest of dust and detritus, but that isn't what I meant.) I'm remembering how I sent a résumé  in response to an ad for a marketing adjunct instructor, no master's degree required, and after a short period of disappointment, forgot all about it. Almost two years later, I got a call from the program director of the business/general education department in Wilsonville. Would I be willing to teach a couple marketing courses? I was like, who is this? And the rest is history. (I'm still asking, who are these people, the invisible leaders of this bizarre excuse for an organization? But I digress.)


I'm not sure I would hang onto a single sock as long as my employer held on to my résumé. Still, my point is, good things can happen, even if they don't happen right away. 


Last night, my colleague and friend, Bravadita, remarked that someone suggested to her that she try to look on the bright side of life. Notwithstanding the fact that Bravadita's life pretty much sucks right now, the person seemed to be saying that (1) this sorry situation of stress-related rash and unemployment is Bravadita's fault (because we create our reality with our choices); and (2) if Bravadita really wanted to change things, she could, simply by focusing on the positive rather than the negative. 


Well, when I heard that, you can imagine the malcontent in me rose up to defend my worldview. “Ha!” I said intelligently. I was like, let me at her, my fist, her nose, bring it on! Very helpful reaction, Carol, to resort to violence to resolve a disagreement.  


What I realized is that my need to be right supersedes everything else in my world. My need to justify my worldview keeps me sifting through all the evidence to seize only the bits that confirm my beliefs. And it's interesting (to me, probably not to you) that despite the obvious evidence that good things can and do happen (even to me), I still am desperately committed to my malcontented position that life sucks and then we die. Despite the job. Despite the sock. 


The chronic malcontent in me rationalizes my intractable position by thinking (and sometimes saying out loud, to my embarrassment), well, the career college only hired me because they were desperate for a body to fill the empty class. They didn't really care who they hired. Any ignorant sucker willing to work for $17 an hour would do. And the sock, well, it's just a stupid sock. It's not like it's anything important. See what I do? It's like my brain can only see the negative. I've been malcontented for so long, it's a habitual reaction. It's chronic! I'm doomed. Even when the sun shines, I can't enjoy the moment: After I rejoice in the feeling of sunlight on my face, my second thought is: it won't last, tomorrow it will rain, and life will suck again.


Now that I've reaffirmed my worldview that life really is meaningless, pointless, and absurd, I can finally open up my concept paper and get to work. After I unload the dryer. And go for a walk. Hey, it's summer, what can I say. It will be gone by tomorrow.

Welcome to Mt. Tabor. Now go home.

While I was sitting on a concrete bunker in Mt. Tabor Park today, catching my breath after trotting up some steps, a older man ran by me, dripping sweat from his lobster-red nose. He saw me feeling my neck pulse (am I dead yet?) and huffed, “Are you in the zone?” or words to that effect. One runner to another, I guess, or maybe he thought I might be having a heart attack. Sure felt like it.

I guess I'm not used to sunshine. Huh. Go figure. This is the Pacific Northwest, after all. I staggered up the trail, making a beeline for the drinking fountain, feeling woozy in this abnormal humidity, thinking, hell, this is what I call humidity? It sure isn't Baltimore! We are so lucky here. And this is such a great neighborhood. Of all the places in this city, this is where I feel at home.

Feeling somewhat revived after gulping brackish water, I meandered slowly out of the park toward the shack I rent, a few hundred yards away. I paused to peer at the new cafe going in across the street where the old drycleaner used to be. (Surely they must know the previous tenant was a drycleaner?) A sign has been hung: Songbird. Yesterday while I was struggling to insert some coherent sentences into my concept paper, some workers were cutting hunks of concrete out of the sidewalk in front, to plant trees, I presume. Looks like it's really going to happen, this cafe.

Last Thursday, while I was out in front carving a path through the brambles so my postgal can deliver my junk mail, a rustic-looking long-haired man walked by, and then walked by again. He came over to me and introduced himself by saying, “We're opening that cafe. I'm Peter.” He held out his hand. I took it and mumbled my name.

“When are you opening?” I asked.

“Oh, sooner or later,” he replied, smiling. I detected an accent. Australian?

“Huh,” I said.

“You should come over, read the newspaper.”

“Yes, I should,” I replied, thinking, I don't have time to sit in your cafe reading the newspaper. I don't even have time to trim the evil rose bush that is swallowing my front walk. My laundry is piled three feet high. Dust and cat hair drift like tumbleweeds across my carpets. My friends have forgotten I exist. My ass is spreading two inches a week from lack of exercise. And you want me to sit idly in your cafe reading a newspaper?

Last night some guy parked his fancy silver SUV across the street from my apartment. His windows were up, but I could still hear his music pounding. Even though it was 11:00 at night, I didn't think, I just opened my front door, closed it behind me so my cat wouldn't bolt, walked over to his car, and peered politely into his window. His window smoothly descended. He hit a button and turned down the volume. I explained my mission, he apologized, and minutes later, he was gone.

I mention this because it is a harbinger of things to come. This is summer in the 'hood. Once the weather warms up, there will lots more SUVs driven by self-centered assholes (no, wait, park visitors), parked on both sides of the street, blocking the bus route, endangering bicyclists and pedestrians. And now with this new cafe opening up, there will be chatting people with their panting, yapping dogs, sitting in clusters under market umbrellas on the sidewalk outside the cafe, inhaling all the residual drycleaner toxins, swilling iced coffees and enjoying my neighborhood. My neighborhood. Their voices will carry, as all sounds do in this perfectly formed acoustic bowl. And I, sweltering in my little hovel, will be forced to listen to their annoying stories, along with the music, the traffic, and the irritating barks of their little ratdogs, because it will be too hot to close my windows.

I complained to a friend. She had one word for me: earplugs.

I'm lean, mean, mode, and median: Hire me, I'm yours!

Finally the low pressure system moved north, leaving space for a rush of warm air from the southwestern deserts, my someday home. Warm at last. Suddenly life is worth living. Amazing how a temperature difference makes all the difference. (It was close to 80°F in Portland today.) Now I don't have to complain about the weather. I can turn my whining toward my second favorite topic, my dissertation journey. Dissertation debacle. Morass. Swamp. Pithole. You know what cracks me up? That I'm using this blog like a Facebook page. I have two friends, Bravadita and my sister!

I spent almost the entire day, about ten hours, working on my concept paper. That old thing, you say? Yep. The living-dead paper that refuses to lay down and die. I keep beating the crap out of it and still it rises up from its fetid grave to perplex and confound my tired brain. Honestly, it feels like I've never written a research paper before in my life. I'm sure my expression must resemble those of my students, who stumbled into Introduction to the Internet (what's a browser, again?) after my colleague Bravadita's Research Paper class, shell-shocked at the prospect of typing (notice I didn't say writing) 15 pages. With in-text citations! And a Works Cited page! Quelle nightmare!

Yesterday, after all the layoffs at the College, I thought I'd better at least try to look for other employment, just in case, so I uploaded a resume and cover letter to a job opening at a market research firm in downtown Portland. Yeah, rotsaruck on that one. I'm sure (if they had time to even download it) they had a good laugh when they got to my resume. I can just imagine them, sitting in plush chairs in their Gucci loafers and Donna Karan pantsuits, sipping lattes from the machine in the breakroom and making paper airplanes out of the stack of resumes sent in by desperate, unemployed MBAs and PhDs.

“Here's another one! Listen to this! This poor schmuck used to drive a school bus! Har har har.”

Wow. Time out. After I wrote that last line, I almost had to get up and make a yonana. But I'm sick of bananas masquerading as ice cream, so I just took another pull on my current drug of choice: room temperature PG Tips tea laced with rice milk. (I'm a professional whiner. Don't try this at home.) Fortified, I can now continue.

Sending my patchwork quilt of a resume into the corporate world is sort of like spreading my formerly-white-now-gray granny-panties all along Belmont. It's embarrassing. There's just no way to put a positive spin on my work history: I'm a loser. It's clear as day I had my head up my ass my entire adult life.

The phone didn't ring today. But should I actually get a call next week inviting me downtown for an interview, I can imagine trying to explain what on earth I was doing all those years.

“Uh... I was trying to...uh...”

How can I explain that I was under the mistaken impression that my art career would actually be able to support me? Should I say I was following my bliss (leaving aside the fact that it was anything but blissful)? I don't know—the word bliss sounds like I was on drugs the whole time, and I wasn't (at least not that I can recall). You know, even putting the words art and career in the same sentence shows how deluded I was, and apparently still am. Maybe I could say, “I was pursuing a career in the arts.” No, same problem. Nobody but Thomas Kinkade made a career in the arts (and look how well that turned out...guess I should be grateful).

Truth? I don't want a job. I don't want to work. I just want to write and draw silly pictures, read stupid vampire novels, and eat ice cream until I'm a blob. What are the odds my dream will come true? I bet the blob part wouldn't be too hard.

So, now I'm ABD, big whoop, and I think I can stroll into the corporate world and wow them with my knowledge of statistics. Unlikely. Today is a good day, but even on a good day my mind is trying to kill me. My brain is mush from my vegan debacle, menopause, and years of sleep deprivation from working at the career college. I'd be lucky to be able to describe the differences between mean, mode, and median. If they call me, I can only throw myself on the mercy of the universe. And if they don't call me, I can say, “See? Told you. I'm a loser, baby...”

The perfect storm destroys a perfectly good career college

In my last post I described the mammoth production known as graduation, which happened on Saturday morning (mandatory attendance by all faculty). The event was organized and produced by two strong and capable women, let's call them Janey and Sally. On Monday morning, Sally sent out an effusive email at 6:00 a.m. thanking everyone for their participation in making it one of the best graduation events in the history of the college. Sometime after that, Sally was called into a meeting with the human resources person and fired.

Sally was not the only one. Another staff member lost his job on Monday, too. In addition, a program director who teaches accounting was told that this would be his last term at the college: in five weeks, he, too, will be out of a job.

As news of the layoffs spread to our site, the shock waves rippled outward. We muttered in the faculty office. We mumbled under our breath about updating our resumes. But no one actually thought the scythe would sweep through our site. Today I received a phone call from my colleague, Sheryl. I could tell by her voice that something was wrong. I thought her grandfatherly cat had finally kicked the bucket. Nope. Apparently, the grim job-reaper visited our site today, lopping off one of our own. By the end of July, he will be gone. Do not pass go, do not collect your vacation pay or your faculty development stipend. Turn in your grades, dude, you are so outta here.

Today, as part of my feeble attempt to earn my faculty development stipend, I attended a workshop on fostering creativity and innovation in organizations. I got up at 5:30 a.m. on a day I would normally ignore until about 8:30 a.m. (painful when you work until 10:20 p.m. the night before). Bleary-eyed, I trundled in my old dusty Ford Focus up to Northwest Portland in spitting rain, found a place to park, signed in with a seriously scary security guard, hiked through a huge office building in search of the conference room, and eventually received my sticky name tag. The two woman sitting at the registration table, for some reason, looked dumbfounded to see me. Maybe because they didn't know me and they knew everyone else? That's all I can think of. Otherwise their behavior makes no sense.

“There's coffee,” one woman said, pointing. I followed her finger and found deliciously hair-raising coffee in urns on a back table, but only non-dairy creamer (Which is worse, dairy or non-dairy? Remind me to ask my naturopath). I carried my cup, half-full, toward the front table where one person was sitting, planning to bravely introduce myself. I was waylaid. The facilitator (call me Bud!) barred my path and held out a deck of cards. “Pick a card!” he ordered. I did, slipping it in my pocket.

“Don't let me walk out of here with it!” I laughed, trying to be friendly. A woman standing nearby smiled politely. I was nervous so I had to say something else.

“Wouldn't it be funny if you could buy playing cards individually to replace the ones that get lost? My brother was a notorious cheater.” Which is a total lie, as far as I know, but the words “notorious cheater” are just inherently funny. I was grinning, expecting someone to say something like, “Wow,” or “So was mine!”

“We never cheated in my family,” the woman sniffed, not looking at me, and sipped her coffee.

I didn't know what to say after that, so I drifted away toward my original destination, where I met a lovely woman named Lynne who apparently works as a trainer at some big manufacturing company, I didn't catch the name. Each time I go to one of these workshops, when I introduce myself as an instructor at a career college, they look at me like I'm from another planet. Like, what's the difference between being a corporate trainer and a teacher? She teaches people hardskills and softskills, just like I do. The only difference is my students pay to take the training, whereas her students get paid.

I'm digressing. I mention this workshop because the topic was about how management can foster creativity and innovation in the organization. One of the ways management can help its workers be innovative is by not punishing them when they offer suggestions on how to improve the company. Sally (remember Sally?) apparently went to the college president recently and passionately expressed her belief that the school could be doing more to improve effectiveness and efficiency. She presented a list of suggestions (rumor has it). What happens if management is narrow-minded, controlling, and territorial? A lively discussion followed.

Now we see what happens, for real, and it is not pretty. Sally's suggestions came home to roost in the form of a pink slip. You're outta here! That's what you get for being loyal, for caring enough to offer suggestions, and for busting your ass to put on a well-organized graduation event, and then emailing us at six-freaking a.m. on Monday morning to thank us all for being there! That'll teach you... you loyal, hard-working, committed (former) employee, you.

Speaking of dead and dying roosters, more heads are on the chopping block. If enrollments don't rise fast, two other instructors will be gone, and with one of them for all intents and purposes goes the entire paralegal program. Could this get any worse?

They hired two high-powered marketing/sales executives last month to boost enrollments. I hope it works. But who is going to teach all those students they entice into our classrooms? (Oh wait, that's what adjuncts are for.) It seems to me we are experiencing the perfect storm: the convergence of tightening government regulations, poor academic quality, and years of mismanagement. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a student of management to watch the ship founder and go under, just another career college, wrecked on the rocks of ineptitude.

I'm ok for another five weeks. After that, all bets are off. I may get to work tonight and find a pink slip in my mailbox. Thanks for all the fish. I'm outta here!

My blog has been invaded by Russians

Not many people visit my blog, not surprisingly, because I've only told a handful of people that it exists. Duh. But for some odd reason, I seem to have an inordinately large number of visitors from Russia. Now, it could be that it is a technological fluke, a lost crawler-bot thingie searching for hot Wisconsin babes that somehow got diverted to a blog by an anonymous malcontent in the Pacific Northwest. I'll be the first to admit I don't know how the Internet works, any more than I know how my phone works, or my microwave. However, I find it hard to believe that something about my blog is especially appealing to Russians.

Russia is such a geographically huge place. I am sure it must be teeming with myriad cultures, just like in the U.S. Is it impossible to imagine there is a little niche of Russians in some out of the way place that is hungry to read a snively, snarky blog about nothing? ... Nah.

Well, the fact remains that my blog is being visited by Russians. I need to consider the fact that I might be writing for a Russian audience! Holy crap. Now I'm wondering if I need to explain my idioms. (Like I even know what an idiom is.) My English sucks. (Sucks, you know, like... sucks. Blows. Bites. Oh, hell.) Maybe if they see the picture they'll get it.

I can't imagine Russians are going to care about the story I am about to tell. But whatever. (You know, whatever? Like, who gives a sh--t?)

Here's my story. Saturday morning I trundled down the freeway to a spot on the map called Tualatin, just south of Portland. It is a real city, apparently, but if you blink as you drive south on I-5 you'll miss it. From the freeway it looks like a shopping center.

Two freeways converge near Tualatin: I-5 and I-205. I-205 meanders (at 65 mph) through some farmlands. Just before you get to the freeway interchange, off to the right, suddenly looms a ginormous church. You know it is a church because it has a huge, I mean huge, cross on a towering edifice facing the properly nervous drivers who speed up as they pass by on the freeway. I'm sure many of them reflect on that gigantic cross and think something along the lines of, wow, nice digs God. Way to go, Big Guy, please don't hurt me, don't hurt me, I'm a speck, going now... bye. Whew.

That church was my destination.

I don't generally frequent churches, except during non-church hours to go to 12 Step meetings. I usually get an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach when I set foot in a church. Probably it's the memory of being six-years-old, relegated to Presbyterian Sunday School while my mother entertained herself by singing in the choir. There was too much Jesus-said-this and God-said-that and not enough Vanilla Wafers and Play-doh, both of which I ate with quiet desperation while I stared blankly at the tediously perky, perfectly coiffed Sunday School teacher.

The reason for my visit to the church: Graduation day at the career college. I was required to attend. It is part of my job, twice a year. (Can I claim worker abuse?) To haul my ass out of bed early on a Saturday morning, to burn my gasoline fumbling my way to BumF-k Tualatin, and, insult to injury, to be forced to don the academic equivalent of a monkey suit... Really, it's too much. That last one is the worst. It's like Halloween in June: a long black polyester graduation gown and a black mortarboard cap. On the bright side, though, the gown hides a veritable plethora of amenities in its sleeves: keys, hankie, cell phone, wallet, mp3 player, earbuds... (I could tuck more in there but I want to be able to waddle down the aisle.)

My stomach was clenched as I parked my car in the vast parking lot and hiked up to the institutional-sized building. Which door, which door? Oh that really big one. (Ok, yes, I'm an insignificant speck in the mind of god, I get it.)

The church auditorium was a huge cavernous space filled with padded seats arranged stadium-style. Balconies stretched above into the dark. It was like being in the Capitol Building of the U.S. Congress. I imagine the screams of angry babies and the screams of angry senators sound pretty much the same. Great acoustics, I will say that. I could hear a baby fart in the upper balcony from the very front row, where my coworker (I'll call her Sheryl) and I sat in a row that had only two seats, far to the left of the stage. (I guess you'd call that stage right. I don't know, I'm not a drama queen. Well, not that kind of drama queen.) Anyway, we were sitting in the front row because it was our job to rise at the appropriate cue, ascend the podium to the lectern, and deliver the Alpha Beta Kappa awards to the four students who managed to attend 95% of their classes for the past 18 months. (I know! What an accomplishment, to actually show up for class almost every time! Of course they deserved a special award.)

I won't bore you with the sordid details of the moment when the emcee—no wait, sorry, the Vice President of Academics—called the name of some other teacher instead of our names, leaving Sheryl and me milling around like a couple of ants whose cake just got moved. Wha? Huh? I won't tell you how I dropped the fancy red cords on the carpeted steps as I was trying to untie the gold thread that bound them together. I won't describe to you how greatly relieved I felt to finally stagger up the aisle at the end of the ceremony, thinking I would soon be on my way home, only to find out the fiends from hell—no wait, the Academic Coordinators—had arranged a reception, which required all the faculty to spread out in a great big circle in the huge atrium foyer area, like we were getting ready to play a game of academic dodge ball. I won't confess here that I sneaked (snuck?) away to the restroom, and hid behind the chaos of the crowd as I edged out the door, peeling layers as I went. I ran down the steps like a bat out of hell, black gown flapping behind me, free at last, thank god almighty, out of this church, free at last.

Of course, all I had to look forward to at home was the seemingly never-ending uphill struggle to re-write my dissertation concept paper, but that is another story. Welcome to the Hellish Handbasket, all you Russian folks. I hope you find something here that keeps you coming back.

Beyond this point lie dragons, demons, and monsters

When I'm under pressure from life and want to escape, I read whatever sleazy paranormal romances I can find at the thrift store. I'm always searching for smart funny authors, authentic characters, riveting stories. I can immerse myself in fantasy worlds where all the men are hunky sex gods and all the women have doe eyes, pert breasts, and the ability to have multiple climaxes in the space of five minutes, just by looking at the hunky sex gods. (Look ma, no hands!)

Actually, the best stories are the ones where the men aren't men, but demons, vampires, werewolves, or dragons. And the women are witches, telepaths, vampires, or faeries. In other words, where nobody is human. For the space of an hour or so, I can suspend reality and pretend such an exotic world might really exist. Where men aren't mean and women don't stink. Where love and sex get along like old friends.

Inevitably, however, I must bump back to reality, where no one (no one I know, anyway) is a hunky sex god or goddess, where in fact stories are boring, life is ho-hum, and the only demons reside within us, thankfully mostly hidden.

But not always hidden. Under the ho-hum surfaces of our public selves, our demons are alive and watching for opportunities to manifest in the form of our quirks, our foibles, our peeves, our fetishes... our monsters. We all have them. Don't lie, what's the point. Everyone else can see them, even if you can't. I've mentioned my personal seven dwarfs in a previous rant. I could add a few more: Meany, Slimeball, and Stink-Eye. Oh hey, look, my personal dwarfs are waving at your personal dwarves. Hi, how ya doin.

I know my internal monsters prevent me from having successful love relationships. I don't care. I'm old. I'm all used up. But it's hard to watch others falling prey to creepy villains over which they have no control. Creepy for me, though, might be thoughtful, loving, and kind to someone else. Hell, what do I know. It's not like I have such a great track record.

I used to believe that we all have a soulmate, that special someone we search for through successive lifetimes, the one who completes us, the one that makes us feel alive like no one else can. Having been to relationship hell a few times, I now know that idea is complete and utter shite. The likelihood of finding a perfect soulmate is zero. Even if I could define “perfect,” the idea that somewhere there is only one special someone for me is laughable at best and cruel at worst. Really. The world is a big place, and I'm not all that hard to please. There are probably hundreds of people alive right now, maybe even a few living in this city, who could tolerate me and my personal dwarfs. Right. Then again, maybe not.

I don't need a Magic 8 Ball to see what's coming

I can always tell when my colleague in the Gen Ed Department (I'll call her Sheryl) has some juicy gossip to share. Sheryl waved me into the office last week, grinning like a fool with a secret. “Guess who I saw in the parking lot this morning!”

Sheryl is a spry, near-retirement gal with bottle-blonde hair who has taught English, math, and computer classes for the college for fifteen years. She has a memory like a video camera, capturing everything—events, conversations, reactions—in a linear fashion, frame by frame. (My brain, in contrast, uses a snapshot approach, organizing scenes more or less by strength of emotion rather than chronological order. So, basically my memory is a photo album organized by a three-year-old.)

The future has been looking somewhat precarious at the career college. Rumors abound. We're moving, we're closing, we're fired...  so I was quite interested when Sheryl told me she cornered the President of the college in the underground parking lot for some answers. I wasn't there, but I can picture him pinned against a car by her direct, no-nonsense, schoolteacher manner.

“Tell me the truth now. Are we closing?”

She's quite intimidating when she assumes her full school-mistress persona, complete with lowered brows, pointing index finger, and strident voice. I can only imagine he was transported back to childhood, cowering under the shadow of his first-grade teacher as she demanded he stop biting the buttons on his shirt. No, wait, that was my childhood. Well, he probably ate crayons. (I never did that.)

Apparently he realized he wasn't getting away without coughing up some answers. She said he sounded like he was eager, almost relieved, to tell her his plans for the college. His plans. That phrase surprised me. I don't know why I thought someone else was driving the bus off the cliff. Maybe because we rarely see him, our invisible college president. I guess I thought he was traveling to conferences, hobnobbing with career college academic-wannabes, doing team-building exercises while his team languishes back at our wilting campuses. What do I know. This is what happens in the absence of leadership: people make up stories to explain what they see and hear. I'm very creative, as you know. But being a chronic malcontent, my stories tend toward the sturm und drang.

 Anyway, back to the story. The answer to the question was “Yes.”

Yes, the site is closing. By the end of 2013, when the lease on the decrepit moldy office building runs out, we will have transitioned to a new site, currently under negotiations, somewhere near the airport (and our major competitors). So, we aren't actually moving; the site will be closing while a new site is opening.

I don't need a Magic 8 Ball to see the future now. Sheryl and I and a handful of other long-timers will man the sinking ship at the old place, while shiny new adjuncts and keepers from the other campuses launch the new venture. While we nurse along the old computers, patch together wobbly chairs, and erase the ghosts of 20 years' worth of scribblings on tired whiteboards, they will enjoy new desks, new chairs, new computers, new whiteboards, maybe even a few Smartboards. While we alternately sweat and freeze in the microclimates of our familiar worn-out classrooms, they will have thermostats in every classroom that actually control the climate for that room.

And when we finally usher out the last student, wipe down the whiteboards for the last time, pack up our mementos, and close the doors on the old site, what then? Do you think there will be room at the new site for us?

We'll be lucky if they remember who we are.

The tipping point in the parent-child relationship

Sort of like the waves of tsunami debris piling up on Oregon beaches, the unpleasant realities of my life are piling up outside my mental door. I'm afraid to go outside, metaphorically speaking. I don't want the world to change, but it is. Argh. I want off this Z-ticket ride. I don't want to play anymore.

Everything feels out of control. My mother has been in an nursing home for almost two weeks, recuperating from a broken pelvis just one floor away from the folks who will leave in a body bag. While she languishes in a hospital bed, knitting a pelvis and a baby blanket and hobnobbing with her roommate who is wrestling with Stage 4 lung cancer, for the first time in my life, I did my mother's laundry, folded her underwear, washed her grimy coffee cups, and vacuumed her dusty carpets. A tipping point has been reached. For a few years, a brief moment in time, we were poised at the top of the roller coaster, equals, friends, and now we are falling down the other side. Now I'm the reluctant parental unit. She's the demanding child.

The institution is mere blocks from my apartment, so I walked down the hill in the setting sun. She and her roommate were just finishing dinner: turkey sandwich, condiments in little plastic packets, fruit cocktail in a tiny white unbreakable dish. I picked up more dirty laundry and sat on the bed, visiting and watching the northern sky darkening with flat gray clouds. I did my best to be present.

A half hour later I hiked home in sprinkling rain and whipping wind, feeling grateful that I could leave, at will, on my own two feet. I found a letter in my mailbox from my landsharks. Uh oh. Sure enough, in poorly typed, terse words, they informed me that my rent was going up $50 and that I'd better weed the front or else.

I went out front and dug up a few of the more obvious weeds with a knife, trying to avoid the nearly invisible strawberry plants, but I didn't even glance at the area my mother was weeding when she took the misstep that tossed her down a flight of concrete steps thirteen days ago. When I couldn't see through my wet glasses, I went back inside, just as the skies opened up under a massive rip of thunder.

I always wondered what it would feel like to finally hit my limit. I'm not quite there yet, but I can tell by the feeling in my chest that it may be close. I'd like to say I'm ready to drag up on the whole thing. Pull a geographical. Take my marbles and go home. But this is home. For now, anyway, and reality is outside, knocking on my door. I'm going to bury myself in a book and pretend I hear nothing.

What should I say when a student says, “I can't do it”?

I've been covering a keyboarding class for a colleague who was out for the first two weeks of the term. On Monday she returned in high dudgeon because her schedule had been revised and no one had bothered to notify her. (Not my job.) Her day probably went downhill from there, but I only saw the hour we spent together in the keyboarding lab. I found myself wishing my cell phone had a video camera. What I saw was a lesson in the power of our brains to create complete and utter shite.

We keep some of our keyboarding materials in a big dented metal cabinet, imprisoned by a combination lock. When I told her the combination, my colleague (I'll call her Betsy) solemnly proclaimed, “I can't do it. Not gonna happen.”

“What?” I said, taken aback.

“I can't open those things. I can't do it. Not gonna happen.”

We walked out of the classroom and stood in front of the metal cabinet. She stared bleakly at the lock. “I can't do it. Not gonna happen.”

“Try it.”

She gingerly touched the lock. She turned the knob as if it were a handle on a jack-in-the-box, like any moment a leering evil head on a spring was going to jump out at her and make her look like an idiot. She cautiously turned the knob again, and then gave it a weak yank. It didn't open. “See? I told you. I can't do it.”

I refused to take her word for it. I muscled her out of the way and grabbed the lock. I twisted it expertly.

“Like this. To the right, then back to the left, then right again, and stop.” I stood aside and made a motion that she should pull the lock open. It opened, of course. She looked resigned. “I told you.”

I stared at her for a moment, wondering how she had managed to survive life thus far. Then I briskly implemented Plan B.

“No problem!” I said brightly. “See this file cabinet? We keep a few in the top drawer. Just make sure you have at least five books in here and you'll be fine.”

That was how our “training session ” began. I'll tell you how it ended in another post, if I remember. What did I learn? I'm not sure. When a student says, “I can't do it. Not gonna happen,” should I take her at her word? Or should I hold the possibility of success for her, until she can achieve it for herself? 

Surrendering to the inevitable

Seeing my mother mending her bones in the rehab down the street is triggering my awareness that I spend a lot of my time believing in the silly misconception that I'm in control of my life. Wow. How's that for a sentence.

What would it be like to surrender to life? To stop fighting time and space, other people, my body... to just accept things as they are? Would my experience of my life feel any different?

Would I be able to feel some gratitude that my mother didn't break her neck falling down those concrete steps (which happen to be in front of my apartment)?

Would I be able to serenely accept that my new dissertation Chairperson is just a higher-paid version of the previous flaky Chairperson?

Would I be able to calmly accept that our 15-day dry spell was bound to end sooner or later, because even though there may be climate change, this is still the Pacific Northwest, and rusty is our natural skin condition?

Will I be able to calmly respond to the alarm clock when it goes off tomorrow morning at 5:30 a.m., instead of smacking it five times before I crawl resentfully out of bed?

I'd write more, but 5:30 rolls around awful quick, and I am not a morning person.

Careening out of control into the wreckage of the future

My normal state is to feel precariously perched on a thin edge, like a malcontented gargoyle glaring at the world. As I listen to the gardener's blowing machine rattling outside my windows, I grit my pearlies and reflect on how it is possible to keep functioning despite being stretched like chewing gum stuck to a shoe. The air around me feels slightly more rarefied, or maybe my lungs aren't processing oxygen efficiently due to my freaking out every five minutes.

My father used to admonish me: “Relax!” I always sat in the same old dusty wing chair during my weekly visits, and he sat in his matching dusty wing chair. My foot would be bobbing, my knee would be jerking, my fingers would be picking at anything rough, for example, my other fingers, the chair piping, the creases on my jeans, my nose—I couldn't sit still.

“Relax! Like this.” He let his hands flop over the edge of the chair arms, hanging his head hang loose, an old bald white guy imitating his idea of a guru's meditative posture. I didn't try to explain to him that my erstwhile attempts to meditate, undertaken in Los Angeles when I was questioning the meaning of my existence, had been tainted by the groupies of the Church of Religious Science. Relaxation leaves one vulnerable to attack by nutbars and wackjobs. Nope, I'll keep on fidgeting, thanks, Dad.

So, now, when I really need to chill out, I can't seem to stop fretting. I have reasons to fret, as do all fretters. Life is hard, and worrying is one way to cope. Probably there are more efficient and effective methods—like crack cocaine. Gin and tonic. Right now even some Ben & Jerry's would soothe the pain... But I've sworn off everything except hot baths, naps, and smutty vampire novels. With so few havens (vices) left in which to hide, it's no wonder my cuticles are raw bloody meat. My friend calls it “dwelling on the wreckage of the future.”

My siblings and I have banded together via email and text message to deal with the latest crisis: The center of our existence, the maternal parental unit, took a tumble down some concrete steps on Monday, fracturing her pelvis and requiring some days of recuperation in the hospital, followed by a stint of as yet unknown duration in rehab. Now I realize her 2011 hip replacement was a dress rehearsal for this event. This time we were prepared. We swung into action. Collect clothes, books, cell phone, crossword puzzles. Move car, water plants, renew library books, notify friends and relatives. Fetch and carry, commiserate via text with the in-town sibling, and draw support from the emails of the out-of-town siblings. And teeter on the thin edge of my life.

When one is in disaster mode, it's always good to keep in mind the possibility of more trouble. What else could go wrong? There's another one of those useless questions again. Well, Carol, let's make a list of what else could go wrong. Let's see: your car could break down; you could get fired from your job; you could run over someone's cat; your committee Chairperson could tell you your concept sucks, start over; you could choke on a fishbone, really, the list is endless! So many possibilities. Drat! I've careened once again into the wreckage of the future!

More to be revealed

Finally, at the age of 55, I think I get it. This is it, this is my life; whether I like it or not, this is my life. It doesn't matter how much I complain or whine. Having hope that things might be other than what they are is a waste of the time I have left. Today I am pondering the idea that what I focus on reveals what I think is important.

I have spent so many hours, days, years thinking if-only thoughts. You know what I mean. If only I were thinner, if only I were pretty, if only I had a new car, if only it were 90 degrees everyday, if only people loved me for who I am.... then I could finally be happy. But if-only thoughts are a pointless dead end, leading me nowhere but down, back into the hole in sidewalk I've tried so hard to crawl out of. Today I am taking a new approach to the if-onlys.

If I am not thin by now, then it was never that important to me. If it were that important, I would have spent more time watching my diet and working out. Bah, who cares about thin! I'm giving it up. From now on, no more obsessing over my hips. I wear huge baggy clothes anyway. People already think I weigh 200 lbs. Who cares about a couple camel hip bumps! At least I'm balanced. And if there is a brief famine after the earthquake, I'll be able to live off those hip bumps for a couple weeks at least. Na na na.

About the whole pretty thing. I'm old now, so pretty, like baby-making, is no longer on the bucket list. But grooming is always possible, if one cares about how one looks. For example, if I don't have manicured nails by now, then clearly I must not rate manicured nails high on my priority list. Nails, shmails. That is an easy one to give up—I have never cared much about grooming. (Just as a for instance, this morning I looked in the mirror and found a white hair growing among the coarse dark hairs in my right eyebrow. It must have been there for quite awhile, to be so long. I confess, I rarely look in the mirror. Grooming is highly over rated, in my opinion. Before long my eyebrows will be non-existent, if my mother's eyebrows are any indication of the future of my facial hair.) Anyway, so when it comes to manicures, I don't care what my nails look like, or my hands either, for that matter. I'm just glad I have hands and that they work, more or less. At least I can point to things and carry a cup of tea.

How about cars and self-image? Americans are obsessed over cars. Not me. If I'm not driving a Lexus by now, then I never cared about how my vehicle communicated my status, not enough anyway to earn the money or marry the rich husband so I had the resources to buy one. I've never participated in the must-have-new-car-every-three-years mentality. (Or the earning thing or the rich-husband strategy either.) I know some people would rather die than drive an old beater. Just like there are those who wouldn't be caught dead shopping at a thrift store. Not me. I happily shop Goodwill, and I'm content with my 11-year-old Ford Focus, with all its dents and scratches. It reminds me of me.

The weather thing is a non-starter, but I'll say something about it anyway, because this morning I had a conversation with someone about the issues of powerlessness and control. She admitted she didn't understand the concept of powerlessness, because people control the weather all the time. I was like, what? People control the weather? How did I get left out of that seminar? She proceeded to tell me that there is a cabal of powerful folks controlling the world's weather, so apparently there's no longer any point in complaining about it. Wow, think of the implications! Humans have been complaining about weather since at least the dawn of history. There will be a huge void in the water-cooler conversation if we all get to choose our own micro-climate. Maybe we can get some work done. Anywho, sign me up! Ninety degrees sounds about optimal to me.

The last one, being loved for who I am, is a tricky if-only. I'm demanding unconditional love, and I know enough now to know humans aren't capable of delivering. Somewhere along the line I guess I must have figured out if I wanted acceptance, I would have to be something or someone other than myself. Naturally I resented that realization, and fought it hard in ways both covert and obvious. Which may explain in part why I chose the difficult path of creativity. (And why my relationships have always been such a mess.) But what I think I'm really asking for is acceptance of my creative self. And it hurts to imagine that, applying the same logic I so glibly applied to my hips, if I haven't focused on my art or my writing by now, then maybe I never really believed in them to begin with.

I can't leave it there. I think my mind is trying to kill me again. This happens when I get close to achieving a meaningful and terrifying objective—and my educational journey might qualify as such an objective. After six years, I am beginning to think I might actually one day finish this Ph.D., that the objective might really be achieved. The thought is terrifying. My instinct is to turn my back on the possibility, revert to my childish self, and declare I never really wanted it anyway, this stupid Ph.D., all I really want is to create, and isn't is sad and unfair that no one loves me? Well, that might have worked when I was 25, but not at 55. Nobody cares about my angst. I have a squad of cheerleaders prodding me to make more art, sell it on Etsy, turn the blog into an ebook, sell it on iTunes. Who am I to say it can't be done? Who am I to put some if-only condition on the dreams I have claimed as mine since childhood? Why can't I make art and earn this Ph.D? Maybe it's not an either-or but a both-and. Memo to Self: This is life. So get over yourself and live it, already.

Pondering the questions

Here's an academic quality question for you. Just in case you care. What happens if faculty define academic quality as critical thinking skills, reasoning skills, and communication skills, while administrators define academic quality as student retention rates, job placement rates, and student loan default rates?

I'd like to say I pondered this question this morning, while I lay in a comfy dentist's chair having a filling replaced, but truthfully, this morning was one of those rare occasions when I can say I was truly in the moment. There's nothing like a trip to the dentist to bring you back to your body.

After I recovered with a nap and a pill, I walked into the park and tried to clear the mental fog away with sunshine and exercise. I do my best thinking while walking in the park. (Too bad I forget all my great ideas immediately. I suspect there is a limit on how many brilliant thoughts I'm allowed. Maybe the limit doesn't count if I don't write them down?) Today, I tried to apply my critical thinking and reasoning skills to the problem of defining academic quality, but I kept getting distracted by cute shaggy dogs, happy dog-walkers, hikers, birds, rocks and pebbles... What can I say? It's spring. Who cares about academic quality when the sun is shining in Portland?

At some point, endorphins kicked in. “The End of the Line” by the Traveling Wilburys came on my mp3 player (no, I'm not cool enough to own an iPod), and I started reflecting on the finite nature of life and art. Then I got frustrated with reflecting. I thought about my aunt who died last Friday at the age of 100. I thought about my sister and our matching quests for meaningful lives. I thought about my friend Karen who died way too soon. I thought about how short life is and how unimportant other people's opinions really are. For about 45 seconds, I was ready to claim my place in the world. I was ready to quit the tedious teaching job. I was ready to jump in my car and head for a new adventure. I was ready to tell the world, loudly and repeatedly, “Make room for me, I have something to say!”

Then I had to climb a hill, I got tired, I sneezed, people were in the way, and the path smelled like dog poop. I went back to pondering the question of academic quality as I left the park and meandered toward home. The sun went down, the pain pill wore off, and everything went back to normal.

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.