Category: Ramblings

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Friends

It’s been a week. In that time, I’ve done…what? Write, edit, read. All good. We did have to say good-bye to our feline buddy, Fritz. He was one of those cats who, when you looked at him, nodded his head and gave a silent meow, as if he was saying “s’up? How you doing?”. He was a totally cool dude and I will really miss him. Hubby was hit hard. Fritz is buried in the back yard along with Junior Basement Cat (a.k.a. Junior), and Little Bit. Just between us, don’t go into the back yard on Halloween!

It’s also been a learning week for me. I have al ot of friends who understand what it’s like to lose a pet. Not only that, there are an equal number of people I’ve only interacted with online who also understand what it’s like. The support both groups have given is simply amazing. You’d think that people might be less than supportive when you say your cat died. I know that I sympathize, but I’m always astonished that others feel as strongly as I do about losing a pet. It’s always eye-opening for me. I’m not sure why, but I guess I always expect people to say “well, it was just a cat…” but they don’t. They tell me stories about their cats, tell me that when their pet goes they will be equally devastated, all sorts of things. It’s always amazing and always leaves me feeling much better about humanity in general.

Another thing Fritz’s death has given me is more awareness of my quirks and supposed coping mechanisms that isn’t all that successful. I’ve realized that when I’m stressed I mess around and don’t do anything of any consequence. I was upset about losing Fritz-man. I procrastinated on Facebook and played Candy Crush. i did do some work, but not as much as I should have or wanted to. I couldn’t seem to concentrate enough to get anything done. There’s no real excuse for that. Working for myself, depending on my writing means I have to write even when I don’t feel like it. There’s no getting around that.

I did do work later in the week and I’ve been reading some useful stuff this week. I highly recommend Janice Hardy’s books “Understanding Show, Don’t Tell” and “Understanding Conflict” for anybody doing any writing at any point. These are invaluable. I read “Show, Don’t Tell” I’ve started back through my book and I’m rewriting sentences and paragraphs. I can already see the difference. I’m working my way through with all of Hardy’s key words/red flag words. It’s time consuming and tedious at times. But totally worth it. I just started “Understanding Conflict” and already I’m getting some good ideas on how to rework some scenes and some general story arcs to up the tension for the reader and the conflict for the characters. This is hella lot more fun than revising academic work, that’s for sure!

This post started out about friends. We psent this afternoon with friends hanging out at the beer garden/food truck spot/whatever, on the river bank. It was a nice day for hanging out with the dog, drinking beer, and watching the leftover Pride Parade folks wander by. Everybody was in a good mood, the sun was shining, and my friend’s dog got a lot of attention so we were quite popular. We all got to catch up, and talk to other people. A good way to end this week and begin next week. I’m very grateful we had this afternoon to catch up and hang out.

Tree trimming people coming tomorrow which means the day will be interrupted, so I need to be organized early in the morning so that I don’t lose too much time. I will lose time, but since I know that’s going to happen I can figure out how I’m going to make up for it. I’ll work it out.

Have a good week all!

Image by Sarah Bolden from Pixabay

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Lazy Sunday

Lazy Sunday afternoons are great. Until you start feeling guilty that you aren’t doing anything. But, really, a good sluggish Sunday can be rejuvenating and even fun. I was up at 6:30 so that must count for some level of activity? Right? We did go for a long up upriver this morning (late morning really), so maybe “lazy” isn’t quite accurate. Following my general process of writing something or at least doing something related to writing every single day has been eye-opening. The more you do something, and discover you’re actually pretty good at it (or at least don’t suck at it, as is my case), the more fun it gets and the more time you want to spend on it. Okay, so maybe cleaning the bathroom doesn’t fall into that category, but I wasn’t thinking about odious chores. I was thinking more along the lines of ‘things I like to do or want to do’.

We had a long conversation about process vs. goals on our walk. I’ve talked about this before, but it is so relevant to my life these days that I keep coming back to it. Writing isn’t a goal. It’s a process. Through the process of writing and revising and editing, I will have a completed book. And, it will be good. I have bought into this notion that life improves when you look at a process for getting and staying healthy, getting and staying financially comfortable (however you define that), getting and staying happy (not just content, but happy). Mike just sent me a link to an interview with Nick Saban (winningest college football coach). And he talked about how he impressed on his players that their job is to run the route, know what they’re supposed to be doing each play, and do that. If everybody on the entire team does their job every play, they will win football games. It’s that simple What’s not simple is keeping everyone doing their jobs. Quarterbacks get rattled and step out of the box a few counts before their supposed to, wide receivers think they see a chance to play the hero and miss the catch instead. Saban said his goal isn’t winning football games, it’s making sure that everybody is doing their job and doing it correctly. After that, the game will take care of itself.

Process not goals.

Process means that if you hit a snag or bump in the road, or fall down or whatever, you simply get up, figure out what happened, and keep following your process. Part of the process is learning from your mistakes and failures. What went wrong there? Why? How can I avoid having that happen in the future? Or if unavoidable, how can I mitigate the effects? What makes me happy? What do I need to do to get there? At the very least, what is making me unhappy and how can I eliminate that thorn from my life.

It’s not all going to happen at once, but if you take things one issue at a time, you will be surprised at how success there will generate good feelings and keep you moving through your process towards even greater success in all things. Above all, be sure to acknowledge gratitude for those things or areas in life that are doing just peachy. I can say from experience that expressing gratitude leads to more things to be grateful for. A virtuous circle is created.

One of the ways I’ve managed to make my life happier and less stressed is to stop watching or reading or obsessively following the news. It simply stresses me out and for about 99.999% of it, there’s nothing I can do to change the situation. So, why stress about it. One of the best ways to stop obsessing over the news and/or politics, for me, is to stay off of Facebook. I allow myself 2 days a week to go on to FB. I keep in touch with a number of people I know in real life and with whom I want to stay connected. Twice a week allows me to see what they’re doing, respond, chat, etc. Then bail out until the next FB day. This has reduced my procrastination significantly and lowered my stress levels as well. I can highly recommend it!

So, a lazy Sunday afternoon is not a bad thing. I will read Janice Hardy’s book on writing conflict and continue editing my own book. It’s all part of the process of working at something writing related every day.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Image by Jörn Heller from Pixabay

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Writing and Procrastination

Yesterday’s post was rambling and a tad incoherent. Today’s post comes to you courtesy of my HUMONGOUS ability to procrastinate. I should be typing out a chapter, but instead I’m typing out this post. Although, I can justify this by saying writing is writing. And, (this is actually accurate), writing here does allow my mind to digest and think over what I need to write for the book and it allows my characters to catch their collective breath and figure out how to tell me what they’re doing and thinking.

I am simultaneously scared and excited for the future. I found myself, again, last night wringing my hands while trying to explain to my husband why I needed him to move faster on the job hunt. He’s doing the best that he can and I should not put any more pressure on him. I have learned that I have the insanely powerful ability to get him to drop everything and make sure that I am happy and or safe. That is a great deal of power and misuse leads to overly stressful reactions on his part. I cannot do that to him. I love him to much to destroy his health and well-being.

So, today, I’m writing here. I must get myself into the right frame of mind for writing a chapter. I’m petrified of not writing and having this go by the wayside. I know that I am the one with the power to decide if it goes by the wayside or if it becomes what I know it will become…a good book in a good series that gives people some small means of escape and a bit of fun along the way.

I feel like I’m heading into the large, dark, unknown wood. Well, I am. I’ve never relied solely on my skills to make a living. I mean, I’ve had jobs (obviously), but this requires me to make my own schedule, set my own rules, be my own supervisor, and generally be in charge of everything. There’s no complaining about bosses or administrators or management. I’m all those people. I truly have nobody and nothing to blame by myself. Abso-freaking-lutely frightening.

OK, then. Into the woods we go! It’s not quite as dark as I’d imagined. Look! There’s a path!

Image by Johannes Plenio from Pixabay

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Writing Weather

What the ever loving hell? Where’s my May weather? It’s been rainy and freaking COLD! It doesn’t even feel like spring. I’m dragging my warm jackets back out again. I need sunshine and warmth! Multiple days in a row of this crap have me wondering why I ever left California in the first place. I know, I know, job, career, yadda, yadda, yadda. I’m cold! In May! This sucks.

On the other hand, these kinds of days are conducive to sitting inside writing and reading. I wrote another 500+ words on something that sprang into my head this morning. I’m still editing and adding to what was “Campus Coven” and is now “Academic Magic” ( © 2019 Becky R. Jones ) , I have another fantasy series half started and a couple more ideas. It’s fun letting my mind wander like this. I’m discovering a creative side that I’ve tapped into once or twice in my life with good results, but never figured it was an ongoing thing. Now, I’m tapping in on purpose, rather than simply when prompted by circumstance (class assignments such as poetry class or art projects in high school, or costume drawings in college). I found a whole well of stories, characters, places, and ideas that I never knew existed. Now, I have to make a plan for accessing them and bringing these stories to light.

The other side of all of this is to turn it into a money-making business. Writing is all well and good, but sitting poverty-stricken in a garret pounding out prose on an old Remington typewriter just doesn’t work. And, pimping oneself out to publishers and editors is not something I’d be any good at (I tend to get snarky fast when people get condescending…see for example, my unspoken, yet nasty, responses to academic peer-reviewers). But, with technology and the internet, one can self-publish (what used to be called “vanity press” because if a reputable publishing house didn’t accept your book, clearly self-publishing indicated a type of vanity on your part) and get your work on Amazon and Barnes and Noble very easily. Yes, you have to market yourself and your writing, but to me, that’s not difficult. I may soon be proven wrong, but I know that I can do this. Life as an academic has taught me that more people than you might think are simply winging it in life. They’re doing the “fake it ’til you make it” routine. And many of them are doing it quite successfully.

Another thing I learned in academia is that good writing is a learned skill and it gets better with practice. I know my writing has improved greatly over the last 20 years and I know it will continue to improve. This blog is one way that I’m using to make sure I write on a regular basis. No, it’s not fiction, but it is a means of putting thoughts on paper and insuring those thoughts are (somewhat) coherent.

On that note, here’s the bit that struck me this morning (please excuse all typos, misspellings, and grammar errors):

I hate space. Hate it with a passion that burns as hot as space is cold. Everything. The potential for instant excruciating death by suffocation, the claustrophobia of a ship, never mind a space suit. In short, I have no desire to ever set foot in space, so to speak. Which of course, clearly explains why I was currently suited up, drifting on a tether outside of the small ship attempting to lock down a grav-gyro. Right now, the claustrophobia of the space suit was preferable to the random, out-of-control wobble of the ship. A couple more turns of the wrench secured the annoying grav-gyro.

I hit the commlink. “OK, Scott. How’s that?”

“Good. C’mon back, babe,” came the response.

Scott O’Brien was the shuttle captain and my husband. He was also the primary reason I was in space. I loved him more than I hated space. Plus, this trip was my first and last. We were headed to a new planet that promised far fewer people, more open land, and a hell of a lot less governmental and corporate interference than Terra One.

We’d both been born and raised on Terra One, the first of a series of planets terraformed and inhabited by early colonists from the original Earth. But, as with Earth, Terra One had become over-developed and filled with over-zealous bureaucrats who had nothing better to do than interfere in the lives of citizens. A year ago, we had made the decision to leave Terra One. It really wasn’t a difficult decision. Both sets of parents were gone, Scott was an only child and I had quit speaking to my sister as a result of my parent’s deaths about 10 years earlier.

Since Scott was an experienced, licensed interplanetary pilot, we were permitted to purchase a small ship capable of faster-than-light travel. A year’s worth of training had brought me to the point where I was able to pass all the tests for a junior first-mate on a ship the size of ours. So, I found myself floating in deep space, fixing a grav-gyro. Everything I hated in one fun, gift-wrapped package. How lucky could a girl get. Have I mentioned that I hate space and everything associated with it?

As I waited for the airlock to cycle, I amazed myself by thinking that I really was lucky. I was married to a man I loved to distraction and we had a new life opening before us. The lock finished cycling and I opened the inner door and stepped back into the ship. As I pulled my helmet and gloves off, Scott came down the passageway, smiling.

“Good job, babe! Miranda O’Brien, badass space mechanic! You could get a great job on one of the big freighters,” he laughed.

“Hmmm. Let me think about that. No.” I laughed with him. He knew perfectly well what it had taken for me to suit up and head out there. It wasn’t that I didn’t have confidence in my repair skills, it was the strength it took to tamp down the massive panic attack every time I put on a suit and left the ship that threatened to derail even the most rudimentary tasks.

Thanks for reading!

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Reaching the finish line

Grading is DONE! Let the whinging begin! Well, I haven’t submitted final grades yet, and I won’t until about 24 hours before they’re due. It cuts down on the whinging. That’s when I also put on the “out of office” auto-reply on my email.

I’ve already had one request for an improved grade with the addition of post-semester extra credit. Really? After the semester is over you’re asking for extra credit? If you’re so worried about your scholarship, perhaps that should have been a consideration…oh, I don’t know…at the beginning of the semester? Maybe? Then I had one question as to whether the grade included the legit extra credit. Then I had one request for permission for late submission of a reflection paper. That one, if I had to guess, is fear of losing the ROTC scholarship. All of that is prior to final grades getting posted. We use Canvas, a so-called “learning management system” for classes. It allows for electronic submission, embedding videos, etc. It also shows grades and it calculates the current grade for students. So, when I posted the results for their last exam, they all figured that what Canvas calculated was their final grade. This, even though they know that is not the final grade. It may be close, but that’s not it.

Oh, well. It’s done. I’ll go back intermittently to do some spring cleaning of my office. I’ve been doing it on an off for the last week or so and finding absolute relics of stuff! 20-year old overheads! Overheads! Grad school papers, and today, draft copies of my dissertation. Oh, joy. It’s all getting recycled. Next week I tackle the filing cabinet! Pray for me!

So, for the rest of the week, I’m writing, editing, and reading. My own stuff, not freshman writing. My stress levels are already considerably lower. The prospect of another beer garden outing on Saturday makes it all even better!

Go do things that make you happy!

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Death and pets

I am waiting for my cat to die. He arrived in our house about a month ago. Prior to that he lived with the father of one of my best friends. Her father died last fall and Elroy (the cat) stayed in the house with one of her sisters until February when the house sold. Then he came to us. On Friday this week, he started to look even thinner (he’d been thin before, but now he was getting positively skeletal). He was not as energetic as he had been, and was not eating as much. I noticed he was breathing more rapidly and heavily as well. We made it through the weekend and this morning I took him to the vet. About five minutes after I dropped him off and left, the vet called me. Apparently his breathing had gotten worse and he was on the edge of dying. She’d brought him back and ran her tests. He has fluid in his chest cavity; the possible result of congestive heart failure or cancer. Later she called to tell me she’d taken 250 ml of fluid out of his chest. Before I picked him up this afternoon, she’d taken another 60 ml. That’s a hella lot of fluid for one small cat.

So, now we’re home. He’s crashed on the sofa and I’m watching him breathe. He’s in the same shape as the late, great Little Bit who died of cancer a couple of years age. I don’t know if he’ll make it through the night. If he does, I will take him back to the vet and my friend and I will make the last decision for him. If he doesn’t, I’ll bury him in the backyard beside the other two who died too young.

Expected or not, long-term family member, or recent arrival, it’s always so difficult to let a pet go. As I sit here watching him, I’d like to think that he’s comfortable (one of my other cats is sleeping next to him; every now and then her paw reaches out to touch him) and not stressed. I want to let him go on his own terms. I am not going to try to forestall the inevitable simply so I can have him around longer. Although he’s only been her for a month, he will be missed.

Here’s to you, Elroy. May you meet up with Henry as soon as you cross the Rainbow Bridge. All of us, human and feline, will miss you.

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Pivoting

So, I’ve been slacking on writing this blog for about a month. It’s been an interesting and enlightening month. After our trip to Punta Cana, both of us have been doing a lot of introspection and discussion as to what we want to do and where we want to be. Things at work have become more poisonous (if possible). I’ve discovered things about people that I would have been happier not knowing. Although, if I didn’t know, I’d probably get caught in the crossfire. Along with the national issues within higher education, the local poison has driven me away from academia. Hubby is looking for another job somewhere closer to northern California where both of our families live. However, we will go wherever he finds a job that he wants.

Along those lines, I’ve been reading a lot about vocations, jobs, living your best life and all that. When I started writing I had the idea that I would pivot to writing full time and then eventually create a non-profit for teaching literacy to adults. I still want to do something like that. But, now I’m thinking I’ll start by volunteering for a literacy program first (baby steps, ya know). But, then I read about just going for it. Fear be damned. It’s already scary thinking about going with only one salary. But, we’ve done it before when I first started teaching. Lots of pivots in this journey.

Pivots are what it’s all about. I just finished reading “The Art of Work” by Jeff Goins (I don’t know him and I’m not paid by him or his publishing company, I just read his book). He uses the term pivot (from basketball), and I like it. It describes perfectly what you do when you are or feel you are, pinned in one place. You can always pivot and face a different direction which opens up different options for you.

People will tell me I’m crazy to give up a tenured position. Who in their right mind gives up a job you can’t get fired from? Only lunatics, right? Well, no. I now understand what my father meant when he asked me if I really wanted to have a tenured job. He was worried. I laughed. I could quit any time, I told him. Tenure worked totally in my favor. What he was worried about is what I realized in the last year or so. Tenure is a two-way trap. Yes, I can leave, but that means giving up a guaranteed job. THAT is a very scary proposition. But staying means playing by rules that are bent, broken, and completely manipulated by those who would control others. Tenure means feeling trapped and thus becoming willing or resigned to, sucking up all kinds of abuse and futile gestures. That becomes not only demoralizing, but soul-killing.

So, unable to keep moving forward in the current direction, I will pivot. It’s scary, fun, exciting, unknown. Let’s do this!

Image: Pixabay

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Back on track

I have not been writing for a few weeks. Things got a bit out of control at work. Then, it was spring break and we treated ourselves to five days in Punta Cana. A much needed beach break where we did nothing except walk on the beach, sit on the beach, move to the pool, back to the beach, to the swim up bar…you get the idea. I did do some writing and read fiction. Then, once we got back the rest of the semester with its stresses and deadlines moved in. OK. Enough of the excuses.

Today we got back on track with everything that’s hanging over us. Once more we dove into our own version of storage wars. This time we went into our own basement. Damn, we have a bunch of crap down there. We got through about six boxes of stuff and have about five boxes to go to Goodwill. That’s a relief. Now, we can go back into the parental storage unit and hopefully empty it out and close out that chapter. I have to start working on my office next. Oh, yay. But I kept thinking we were doing this “Swedish death cleaning” thing. Clearing out our extraneous junk so that nobody has to deal with it after we’re gone.

While we were on vacation we spent a lot of time talking about where we want to be in our lives and how we’re going to get there. I think this vacation was a big turning point for us. The Swedish death cleaning is a result of that. We now both have systems in place to get us moving towards something new. Right now, I’m not setting goals, I’m trying to create a system for simply doing something different and more fun.

This post is a bit rambling, but I’m still putting things together. Life is changing; I know it will be different and better. I’m not sure how we’re going to get there, but I know we will. Now, I just have to figure out this meditation thing so that I can get my stress levels down! Ha!

Image by analogicus from Pixabay

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Suitcases

Who would have thought that something as simple and as worn as old roller bag suitcases could send me into a well of sadness? For the fourth Saturday, we have been cleaning out the storage unit where I put all my parents things after my dad died in 2013, and then added in the few remaining items when my mom passed in 2016. Yes, it’s been over five years that we’ve been paying for a 10×15 climate-controlled storage unit. Running out of estate money has made it a priority to clear things out.

Three weeks ago we took all the remaining furniture and bed to Good Will and to the dump. Two weeks ago we shifted everything remaining into a much smaller space and then took boxes of books home to sort through. The suitcases did not make it into the first run to the dump. Nor did they make it to the second run. Today, we planned on getting the rest of the books and figure out what, of what remained, would go to Good Will and what would go to the dump. This time, I knew the suitcases should go. As we were talking before we left the house, I started tearing up. There’s something about those suitcases that, more than any of the stuff/items/furniture I’ve been sorting through over the last month, most fully evokes my parents for me. I can picture them in my mind’s eye, walking steadily, if not rapidly, through various airports, pulling the bags behind them. Philly, Dublin, Munich, San Francisco, Portland, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong…they traveled a lot and enjoyed the hell out of it. Always with those roller bags.

Interestingly, they were the exceptions among their siblings. My mom’s sister would come out to Philly after my parent’s moved out here and she made one epic trip to South America, including Antarctica, with her second husband. But after that trip, she stuck to traveling between Sacramento and San Francisco, and then Philadelphia.

My uncle, my dad’s brother, hasn’t left the West Coast since he moved there after leaving the Navy. Now he lives in central Washington and travel is limited to driving down to Sunriver, Oregon, where we all meet up for a family reunion every year, and down to Napa Valley for short wine-tasting vacations. Other than that, they don’t travel. Of course, my aunt (uncle’s wife) doesn’t drive and is afraid to fly. That will limit your excursions.

I find that I’m sort of halfway in between. I love to travel, especially to Europe and around this country. But, I find that multiple trips in a couple of months are tiring and afterwards all I want to do is sit at home for about six months.

We got to the dump and while I was fussing with getting a couple of old lamps out of the back of the car, Mike got the suitcases and tossed them into the back of the trash truck. I didn’t even see them go, and I actually thought we’d forgotten to get them out of the car until we left. I’m glad I didn’t see them go. I tend to anthropomorphize things a lot and seeing them in the trash truck likely would have wrecked me.

It’s done and I’m okay with it. It was time. Who knew suitcases could evoke such emotions?

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Life and friends

Last night was a good night. I got to hang out with some friends I haven’t seen in a long while. Hubby was playing poker (hosted by the husband of one of said friends), so we each had separate social engagements. This is a very good thing. He got to hang out with a couple of our friends and some others, drink and play cards, and I got to see friends and talk chick things.

One thing I am reminded of when I meet up with this group of women is how lucky I am with regards to my husband. He’s thoughtful, supportive, and an equal partner in all things in our marriage. He does laundry, cooks, cleans, and takes care of a number of the grosser chores around the house (cleaning litter boxes for example). Last night I listened to the frustrations, anxieties and downright anger from two friends about their husbands. One has just told her husband that she wants a divorce. She has gone back and forth about this for several months now. She’s clearly not happy. Several times during the evening, as we were talking and she was describing some incident, or a reaction, she started tearing up. The other friend was having mild anxiety attacks as she listened to some of these issues. She’s also having problems with her husband and simultaneously dealing with her parent’s estate, trying to sell her childhood home, deal with a sister who doesn’t want to leave the house, a husband who seems ignorant of her wants, needs, desires, until and unless she spells them out. Multiple times. She wants to leave (I’m pretty sure), but she does not work outside the home and is unsure of her own skills and talents (which are numerous). Plus her daughter is pregnant and she is stressing over that as well.

As we all talked, I realized that I am very grateful for what I have. I have had a couple of bad relationships (patricide anyone??) but, I like to think that I learned from those relationships and avoided repeating the mistakes.

On the other hand, I felt a bit guilty. Not because I had nothing of consequence to complain about, but because I found myself thinking “you have said the same thing, made the same complaints for the last year or so. Do something!” Of course, without a job, and feeling like she has no skills, or is too old or whatever, makes contemplating leaving extremely scary. I cannot overlook that. I do try to remind her that she still has her skill set and that she is capable of taking care of herself. And, I try to dial back my annoyance (the annoyance is what makes me feel guilty).

All of this is by way of saying, life is funny. We fight some battles forever and always simply on the principle of the matter. Other battles, we seem to give up before the battle even starts. Lately I’ve been contemplating major life changes. Thinking about what I want to do/will be doing is very scary. There will be less money, we’ll be in a different city. This whole thing will take a lot of work and effort. And, there will be times when it won’t work out. But I’ll have to keep going. The more I think about what’s ahead, the more excited I am to get started. But then, I have started in many ways. While I still have a day job, my priorities are changing. This is going to be an interesting ride.

Life is funny. But, that’s what makes it an adventure.