40 hours

How do you all regular folks get it done?

(By regular folks, I mean folks with 40+ hour work weeks).

I have been unemployed since May, and I have never been busier in my life. And no! It's NOT all time spent looking for a job (although I do that every day). I cook, I clean, I run errands, I make phone calls, I go to appointments... just the business of being me takes up all my time. I am not even finding time to work out, people. I am booked. (To be fair, I am running the kitchen for my roommate LAS and I. And I sometimes run errands for her too).

Of course, sooner or later, carpet bombing New York City with my resume is going to mean I'll get a job. But when I do, who will take out the trash and sweep the kitchen floor? Who will make the phone calls? Who will go to the post office, stop by the pharmacy, braise the chicken?

I just don't get it.



Other news: I am doing well. About ten times a day, I think of something new to feel grateful for. Feeling content, calm and happy is something I am not used to, but I would like it to last. The only way I know to make "it" last is to say gratitude prayers and make gratitude lists. Anyone else have a method of hanging onto happy?

So I sold out.

I put ads on this blog. Why? Because I am fairly broke and because anything would help and because I trust that 99% of you come here to read my posts, not look at ads for anti0-aging remedies. (That does NOT mean you shouldn't click on those ads if you like what you see).

Let's see... other happenings... I threw away all the angry fat clothes I accumulated when I was several sizes larger due to extreme stress. Please note that this statement does not imply that I m now a size zero. It merely suggests that I am smaller than a baby rhino and am getting healthier. Take what you can get. I certainly have to.

HMMM. In other news, I joined APOCALYPSE! APOCALYPSE! Facebook this week after years of intense pressure. No, you can't find me on facebook because you don't know my real name. Maybe all this therapy will help me get over my internet anonymity issues and we can all be together, names, faces, and all.

To make up for all my perfidy, here is a picture of me naked. Too bad it does you so little good.

Love, love.

Now this is right

I talked it over with my surviving female relatives and, while noting the opinion of avitable, we agreed that retail lingerie is the right thing for me to do.

Who else but me could appreciate and sympathize with the issues common to those blessed with largesse?

and who can forget this photo??



Jeez I look almost flat chested in that one. Need to find more photos.

Why all the fuss?

OK so I finally got Google Analytics to work. It told me what I already knew, which is no one stops by here anymore, which means I need to start posting every day again - that even though (as discussed) the narrative arc has closed - there is more to say.I'll start with the obvious: what the hell is going on?

In August, after my last day of work, I made the decision to allow myself to be underemployed for a semester in the hopes of getting my mental and physical health back. From September through December, I have been doing just that, and you know what? It has been fucking great.

I feel so much better.

But now it's time to work, and though I am still teaching part time to keep a roof over my head, I need to do more work to make the financial part of my life function. Right now my choices are:

1) get a job in retail. I am thinking Bloomingdales, fitting gals for bras. I would be so good at that.

2) go to a temp agency and indicate that I am good at several office type skills and see if they can give me a job two days a week.

Please note: everyone thinks I should go with option 2 because it is far more professional. But I kind of want to help young ignorant women learn how to pick out a bra.

What say you?

PS another foot of snow to fall tonight. Yippee!

Yes, I care. I care a lot.

I can't get the snippet of code from Google Analytics to stick to the template of my blog. The error message I am getting is something like the XML code is unworthy or some crap like that.

WTF?

Was it always this hard?

The whole problem is enough to make me drink red wine and stuff my face with basmati rice.

And if you don't understand that, we really can't be friends anymore.

Um but honestly can someone help me make this work? Because I am reported to be smart and I am failing. FAIL, FAIL, FAILING.

I do love you though. I can't help myself, and love is all that matters.

(But I fucking want my stats). (Please).

Educate Me

Would someone please explain to me what is so great about Google Analytics? I tried to sign up for it, but it appeared to be telling me that on every single post, I have to plunk in a mile of code. Am I not reading the instructions correctly? Because if they really want me to plunk their special code into every single post I am not sure I can be their friend.

Also: whether this is true or not (and I'd like to know) is the information provided by Google Analytics worth all the (apparent) trouble???

One of y'all must know. Someone warm and toasty like Jane, or perhaps Adam.

Help. Please.

What happened to me?

A lot has happened. I lost my job, and that turned out to be a good thing. As it turns out, I hated that job, and I don't miss it. I miss the paycheck a lot, but for $3126 per month? That much pain? Not worth it at all.

I have also been doing some, oh, mental and physical inventory in an effort to somehow get myself back to where I was before the Recent Unpleasantness*.

Guess what? At the moment in my life when I thought I was the most plain and dreary looking, I looked like this:



I was so terribly insecure. I actually thought having those hips made me fat. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. So not funny.

How are you?

* That whore my father married has sold our house, and moved back to the old neighborhood, and gee it's a good thing I don't have that horrible job anymore because she has been lunching with my former coworkers and telling them what a terrible person I am to have "done this to her." Whatever could she mean?

Help me decide

My brother has pissed me off by suggesting that my running days are over. That I can't handle it anymore. That my knees can't handle it anymore. Blah blah. In response I have decided to jog/walk/crawl, whatever it takes, another marathon.

I want a January marathon to mark my birthday. Top contenders are:

1) Miami Marathon - it's Miami, after all.

2) Carlsbad Marathon - San Diego is perfect weather and terrain.

3) Angel Marathon - Boulder City, NV (never been there - sounds cool).

4) Disney World Marathon - magic kingdom??

5) Ocala Marathon - again, Florida is great for running (crawling, too).


Anyone have an opinion on this? Oh and to be clear, I will stomp my brother on this issue. Nothing pisses me off more than people who don't believe in me.

Love,

Nina

Back to Black

Many of you said you didn't like the black background, and I agreed with you, mostly. But the blog started black and when I started messing around with the template, everything else just seemed all wrong. So now we are back to black, if not permanently, for now.

More on fasting: I decided to fast for a week in order to shrink my stomach and start the weight loss process. Boy howdy, was that a good time. I made it six days. And you know what? My jeans were every bit as unwelcoming as they were the day I started.

So now I am eating again... but not much. Because I bought a scale. And if you know anything about me and my issues with numbers, you know I will be in constant competition with that scale to force it to give me a lower number. Because the current number?? Inexcusable. Totally and in every way unacceptable.

People, I used to be hot. Granted, I was 23 when the hotness was occurring, but I don't think it is too much to ask, at 40, to be recognizable as the same person who was hot as 23. The great fun of this, of course, is that when I was 23, I thought I was ugly.

Young folks everywhere: no matter what nature gave you, you look great. Enjoy the hell out of it.

Anyone out there think I can lose 20 pounds in 40 days? Because right now, my obsession with numbers says that is the goal. Oh and advice on how to do it is always welcome. And yes, I know the basic truth about weight loss: eat less; weigh less.

Love,

Nina

Owning the slow lane

Today I went to the gym. (I have gone to the gym every day since January 1st). (I am still not hot).

But so anyway I was at the gym and I figured since I had the swim suit with me I would swim laps after my normal work out, you know, sort of like bonus calorie burning.

(Digression: I swam competitively in college, which is to say I drank a whole lot and then compensated for it by showing up to practice each afternoon and gasping my way through a division three work out in the SLOW lane. I was never in it for crushing other people with my speed and prowess. I was into detoxification and, to be perfectly honest... perfect form. I thought of nothing as I swam those laps (NOTHING! NOTHING!) except perfect form (oh and maybe should I sleep with my BFF's boyfriend... yes or no?).

So today dove into the slow lane and OH MY...

I cannot begin to tell you what the water felt like. Memories of all those mid afternoons and early mornings spent lapping back and forth across the pool rushed back my limbs and suddenly I was half way across the pool and oh my God... it was, no joke, heaven. If there is a heaven, mine has a long course swimming pool. With the little flags over the top for backstrokers.

Happy. Glide, glide, breathe glide, flip, glide, etc.

Then someone else got in my lane, and that is when the second most unexpected thing happened. I got, how you say, aggressive. Almost hostile. I had to be faster than she was and I made damn sure I was. Glide, glide, breathe flip truned into a ferocious attention to gaining time on the turns and stepping up tempo and breathing efficiently SO I COULD CRUSH THE ENEMY.

(I crushed her).

But seriously, I was surprised at myself. A lot. I haven't seen that person in a long, long time. In college, I owned the slow lane. I was the fastest person in it and my form was exquisite, but I lost races. I was just not that fast. I lived with it. I had big boobs and I drank a lot so I figured I was doing the best I could given my physical and personal limitations.

But now, at forty, with even bigger boobs, and serious limitations I won't even begin to list, all that losing has caught up with me. I don't want to be slow anymore. Or medium with good form WHATEVER ALREADY. I want to win.

And all this has me thinking: what happened? I am not competitive. I don't compare myself to others. I feel good about others' achievements. I like not standing out. RIGHT?

Well, hell if I know. In the pool at least, I am just not that person anymore. It makes me wonder what else about me is changing. (I'll take change. Pretty much everything about me is material for revision).

Love love love. It's the only thing that matters. (Ok, that and winning).

Request for Advice

I started this blog a few years ago, and when I started, the blog had no purpose at all. AT. ALL.

Then it developed a purpose. It got me through the death of my father and all manner of other related crapulence. I have maintained the blog - though it had no clear purpose - and since those events (see: crapulence), I have tried to write.

I think we all agree that the better posts are in the archives.

The advice I request has not to do with whether I should keep blogging. I shall. Really. (Please don't look at me like that).

What I want to know is this: as I embark on the book project unrelated to this blog (but not without overlap)... can I, should I, shall I... write about the book?

And what is the book...?

It is a novel. It is not the Whole Story of Why I Sharpen My Knives.

It is just a story.

(In which perhaps one character will maintain a shocking collections of very sharp knives).

Can I blog about it... ?

Place Holder

In order to maintain my "back" status, I am posting this uselessness.

Is it useless?

It depends.

Have you heard of Joseph Arthur?

....

Good heavens.

....

Get you some.

Cool

Everything is cool. I am okay. Will post tomorrow including drawings of my new place. Maybe also I'll describe the new neighborhood.

Love,

Nina

Done and Done

If I get a chance to write tomorrow, the story will feature my doormen sneering at me, the porters sitting on their asses watching me move everything all by myself, me breaking down crying every time no one was looking, several things I care about getting stolen as I unloaded the car, and finally my cat biting the bejeezus out of my hand because he was afraid to get in the cat-carrier at 10 o'clock tonight when I finally got back up there to pick him up.

I don't even blame him. I'd bite too if I had a ready victim.

Love,

Nina

Last night in the Gothic Castle

I graded papers and packed all day. Tonight is my last night living here:



Of course it doesn't look like this right now. It is half empty and stacked with boxes and battered furniture. Tomorrow morning I have to finish packing the kitchen and then I have to track down a few more boxes to shove books into. Gah. The good news is that I have passed beyond stressed and freaking out and settled into a lovely hypnotic "who cares" kind of mood that I hope lasts until morning. (It probably will not).

I would post pictures of the new place if I had authorization from Newsy, but I feel it would be an invasion of her family's privacy.

Rest assured, however, that I will post tomorrow night from the new place and try to say something funny about the moving process. I would feel more nostalgic about leaving here if it were not for the fact that this apartment has been the scene of a lot of __________. The new place, no matter what its challenges, is full of good people and in the long run I will be okay there. And moving puts a tidy demarcation line between then and now.

Until now gets here, feast your eyes on... oh, whatever. Here is a picture of me before I was crazy. I was cuter then, but I was also less emotionally seasoned. On the other hand, I still look pretty much like that except for the aging process, which.... oh, let's just let that idea drift away without further comment.



See you tomorrow from the new (and undisclosed) location.


Love,
Nina

Standing at the piano

Is that what they call it when you sit around and think about yourself a lot?

I posted recently that I have been trying to figure out what the second half of my life is supposed to be like, and at the time I had some answers. But then something happened that make me realize that ridiculous list of things I want to do are things that I can't just do all at once, simultaneously - and that the list is rather arbitrary. I just don't know. I also realized that my anxiety about the future is complicated by the fact that I am 38. The kind of directionless, strange, unmoored, financially ruined, romantically unattached, career indifference is the stuff that is supposed to trouble people who are, say, 25 or even 30. By 38, peoples lives are supposed to be defined already. I can't even have a proper mid life crisis because all my LOOK AT MY BELLY BUTTON! is about shit that any normal person would have figured out already.

A proper mid-life crisis is supposed to be about trying to change your life - shirking your marital obligations, indulging in wild spending sprees, committing ill-advised wardrobe crimes, glaring.. woefully and with great disappointment at your offspring who turned into exactly the people you hoped they wouldn't - in short more like you than you had hoped.

Instead I have before me... nothing.. Just a whole lot of blankness and lack of any proper instinct as to what should happen next. It's rather like standing at the piano and not knowing how to play. Or if I did, what would be the song?

So if you don't hear from me, blog wise,* for a few days, be assured I am just fine. Alive. Breathing. Eating cheese. It just so happens that short of simply staying alive, I have no idea what to do, and that will often mean that I don't know what to say.

*be assured also that if anything amusing happens - say if I smack anyone in the face with my boob by accident - or trip and fall at the train station and bruise my knees - in short, if I have a story to tell that might amuse anyone, you will have it. Promise.

Dig, if you will

The lack of posting.

Have I been busy? Uh huh.

I am getting ready to move and it's arduous. I also have work and a fair amount of to be expected death of father crying to do. I am not complaining. It's normal and in the department of tears, I have a balance fairly large to pay. So I pay some every day. OW.


Today, out of nowhere, someone leaned out of a cab and screamed "FUCK YOU" at me. I did not recognize him. Perhaps he thought I was someone else?

Knitting season is upon us. Who wants mittens?

Love,

Nina

River walk

It's funny what a walk down to the river will do for you. (Or in this case, me). I did a lot of thinking. About everything. Where I am and where I am going, what's going to happen and what I want the second half of my life to be like. These reflections brought, as they commonly do, good news and some bad, too.

The excellent news is that I know what I want. More on that later.

The less than ideal news is that due to my recent reflections on what the first half of my life have been like, I have had to face some distressing facts about what I have been been calling mytragic, unfair, almost mythologically terrible life. The facts are the my life has not been tragic or unfair and I realize too that mythologizing my... wait for it... pain (*sob, sob) is... wait for it... selfish and immature.

What the fuck? Seriously.

I got born in the richest country in the world to parents who loved me. I got born white* and with the exception of some early life kidney issues, healthy. My parents are no longer here because of cancer and its special brand of terrorism, but so what? What grounds have I got to even complain about that? Orphaned at 38. Bah. What a crock. Being disinherited? Well, so what. I could also have been born to people who had no money at all and I could have been raised in the kind of house where no one aspires to anything more than drinking PBR and moving up the ladder at Wal-Mart. I could have been born, in other words, to people who didn't steer me right. But I wasn't. I had great parents. They died. It sucks, but heart attacks and car accidents and freak accidents on roller coasters happen, too. So again, so.... WHAT?

I also got born into an extended family of honorable, decent people. I might be parentless, but I have my aunts and uncles and my brother and his wife and nephew. I have more friends than I deserve.

And then there is the fact that I wasn't born stupid or ugly. True, I am not as smart as either of my parents were - and like anyone else, I am rarely the smartest person in the room. But I am not exactly running a second rate brain, either. As as far as being not ugly - I didn't say I was beautiful. But I am standard issue blond Irish-American and as long as I don't let myself get too fat and I don't run my mouth life a sailor, other people assess me as pretty enough.

I have an education, too. And a master's degree. And I have a good job that doesn't keep me up all hours of the night tossing and turning about my place in the world. I know very well what it is: I am a teacher. I teach. It was not only what I do; it is what I am. 99% of the rest of the world does something they hate for money to pay bills they would rather never have incurred because life... even in the richest country in the world... is hard.

And then if you look at my romantic ungoodness, well. What the fuck ever. I dated some nice men. I dated some bad ones, too. I just never got married. Big deal. If you consider the.... emotional attention that needs get paid to family issues when people have cancer, it's hardly surprising. My mom was diagnosed when I was 16 and she died when I was 25. My dad - you already know about. It's arguable that there was time in between for me to find someone and blah blah blah - and believe me, I tried. But from where I am sitting right now, I can see a certain divine wisdom in keeping me on my own. Those between years were spent getting an education and changing careers and adjusting to life in New York - and there were boyfriends, yes. But none of them was the right one. What? Was I supposed to drug some poor fool and drag him off to Vegas? Plus, I know a thing or two about myself and commitment. I don't commit well, mostly because I take commitments so damned seriously. It's no wonder that the marriage and kids thing didn't happen for me. When was the timing right? When did the right guy appear? Never and never.

My money problems suck, but they are not my fault. I worked and worked worked. I got rooked in nine different ways. But who doesn't have money troubles? Big f-ing deal.

So I sat there at the river and faced the facts: my life hasn't sucked. It has been more good than it has bad. What has sucked is my immature sense of entitlement to something different, something better, something else. Well, Jesus Christ on a cracker. WHAT?

So now i return to what I want the second half of my life to be life. Since you are surely entitled to sainthood after reading this post about, oh, ME, and my issues (self-centered, much, Nina?) I'll list what I think I want in round two in list form.

1) I want to run again. Little known fact: I used to marathon. I was never fast, but I was good at it and I am convinced it would produce something akin to joy if I were able to find a jog bra that fit and start doing it again.

2) I want to write. Blog, fine. But I need to write other things. I am thinking of writing books. More on this later when it is clearer to me what those might be about..

3) I want to out-climb that hyper-ambitious ceiling swinging climbing Goddess known as Sri. The itty tiny little competitive streak in me? It popped up and said "Hi" to me as I sat at the river. I want to climb and I want to do it really well.

4) I want to untie all the knots in my head and get myself in a psychological position to date again. Not because I want to have kids - that ship has sailed. But recent reflections (see above) lead me to believe that all my NO MEN EVER AGAIN policy is both unrealistic and the greatest manifestation of all that I am behaving - with regard to my past - like a spoiled child. What good is proving to the world that I can in fact ignore the whole business of dating? The only person with anyone to lose or gain is me. And I'd be losing for trying. So I have to stop trying - that is start trying not to look at every dating opportunity as a personal invitation into the mouth of hell. It might be, but if I am ever going to get my psychological outfit into a healthier arrangement, I might need to start looking at men as something other than a guarantee of full-on misery. I don't know if I will make any progress in this area, but try I must.

5) Smile more. Do my job with a little more verve than has been my habit for the last 8 years. And more than that, do no harm. Pain, suffering, misery of all kind is out there everywhere. I don't want to contribute to it at any point, for any reason, for anyone.

So, uh, that was my day.

How was yours?



* I ain't bein' racist. If you want to act like life isn't easier for white people, fine, but I think we all know that it is. At any rate, I'll take the pale, flat and uninteresting skin, SPF 40 notwithstanding.

Panic Hire U Strikes again

I just agreed to do something that I would never, ever do again. Ever.

I agreed to teach an 8:15am class all the way across town for the people whose paperwork is so sloppy that they can barely manage to pay me until half way through the semester. Why oh why did I do this?

This is a personal failing I have had since I was old enough to get my work permit. I just can't turn down work. It is the grossest. But what can I do? Someone offers me work, I need the money, I take it.

The bright side, of course, is I'll have work and work means money.

The other bright side is that I am finally off my butt and doing laundry and working and gearing up for a new semester. The sulk is over. Back to work.

Cross-Mojination

It has been a weak week since I got home from whatever that was I went to in South Carolina. That craziness. I have been... what do they call it? gentle with my psychological outfit and I have tried not to overtax myself for fear I would have some kind of episode.

There comes a time, however, when it is time to get off the couch and stop fantasizing about living in a trailer and spending my days in lawn chair denuding dandelions. Today is going to be the day.

I will:

1) Go see my brother
2) Return those ugly pants that don't even fit me...
3) Stop by the post office
4) Go by my friend's parents' house and see where I will be living. Make sure I can see myself there, etc.
5) Stop by my church and place my hand on the door and look through the window. Rome. Day. You know what I am saying.

Your turn. What do you all need to be doing that you are putting off? Everybody pick something and tell me about it. Then, so we all have cross-mojination, go do it.

I love you.*


* Still appreciating you, too.