Oh man, I’ve been up to all kinds of madness. The bday party already feels so long ago, I can barely remember what the hell happened. It was a good time, but the details are blurry now. 🙂 And work has been insane the last couple of weeks: our site databases kept getting hacked, and the techs took for fucking ever to identify/fix the security loopholes. In the interim, I had to create a shitload of workarounds. Plus, I had a work presentation Wednesday night, and then department summer events are kicking in… ugh, ugh, ugh. I like to be busy, but shiit, I’m going to give myself UTI with all this nonstop bullshit… Gotta start pre emptively downing the cranberry juice!!

John and I flew in from Seattle this morning. We had an awesome trip hanging with our buds. I learned a new song for the uke: The Show by Lenka. I think I can get it to a decent level fairly soon… Seattle weather was incredible: sunny, clear, beautiful! Per our usual m.o., we binged on rich, delish foods, chased it all down with booze (I’m onto gin cocktails now), and gave ourselves food coma. When we weren’t out of commission, we checked out Bainbridge Island, walked around some of the lil’ hoods, took the new pup to a monster dog park, the boys went to a Boeing tour (I’m doing that next time), the gals squeezed in some shopping (of course) followed by a Chinese foot massage… Good times!

So last week I learned of a new hair coloring trick: hair chalk. Yes, it sounded simple enough. Color chunks of hair using pastels. As usual, I did my due diligence: read up online and watched YouTube vids. Seemed super easy. Went out and bought myself a fun Smurfy blue.

The next morning, thinking I only needed ten minutes to get this show on the road, I was sadly mistaken. First, the blue streaks went onto my hair rather easily. But the blue powder also adhered easily to my fingers and the bathroom sink, floor, my shirt, everywhere…. yes, I know chalk is very powdery, but I didn’t anticipate this level of mess. None of this was mentioned or shown in the YouTube vids!!

By the time I’d gotten to the office, my fingers were blue, and I had chalk on the back of my shirt, not to mention all around my neck. Yes, I looked like a jaundice case but blue. Or a bruised/battered person.

And that was only the beginning to my Friday. Later that morning, our site database at work got hacked. Again. Yup, for the third time in seven days. Tech support was taking forever to restore my shit, so I spent the rest of the day creating workarounds to my dynamic webpages. By the time I’d left the office, I had to go buy groceries for my birthday party the very next day (John’s office move ran into its own share of snags). Errands, cleaning, laundry. Yup, so I had to get my shit done. Made two dishes for the party.

The next morning, at 5 am, in my quasi-sleep state, my left thumb rubbed the bottom of my ring finger expecting to meet my wedding ring. Nope. Wasn’t there, and immediately, I opened my eyes. I turned to my nightstand and patted the surface in the dark. No ring. Got out of bed and started searching the usual spots: bathroom, high boy, everywhere. Ten minutes later, I started to panic because I had NO recollection of removing my ring at all. The day before was so damn frazzling as I tried to get shit back online and deal with my Smurf illness. Ugh. So I started rummaging like crazy, and John woke up to the commotion. He started helping me search. Nothing. I then went to the office to see if I had taken it off at my desk. NOTHING. Fuck!! I was REALLY starting to freak out… I dunno: sentimental value I guess. I’ve had it since 2002.

Returned home at 7 am, and I was on the verge of a meltdown. My mind was blazing ahead thinking about how my party was ruined because I was going to be so pre-occupied, and then minutes later, Bubbey came over and said he had a bday present!! Thank fucking god. I dunno how it was in the bed, but that’s where he found it. Shiit, could I have taken it off in my sleep? I have no fucking idea. Lucky for him, that ONE move got him out of the doghouse for skirting nearly all his duties for my bday party.

My party later that day went well. But shiit hosting people is a ton of work. So much cleaning involved. But we had a great time. Interestingly, someone quizzed us:

1. What’s your favorite animal and why?
2. What’s your second favorite animal and why?
3. How do you describe the ocean?
4. You wake up and are on an island. What do you do/feel?
5. You are suddenly in a room with just four walls, one containing a nail.

Did you take the quiz? I’ll interpret your answers in the next posting. 🙂

What else? On Sunday, I was back on Sugar. Damn beotch horse (but she sure is pretty). I sweated my brains out riding that unruly horse. Shiit, when she’d run, she’d run fast and take very tight turns (I swear she was trying to throw me off). I’ve transitioned into my real cowboy boots now, so those pointed toes sure came in handy sliding my boots back into the stirrups as Sugar thrashed me around. But hell if I will be outlasted by a horse…

I did come off of her that afternoon with my shirt completely drenched. Scary and yet oh so thrilling. Am I gonna become an adrenaline junkie? It’s possible. 🙂

Last month, I had an informational interview last week with a guy, with whom John used to work briefly. Now, the guy C works for a personality testing/professional development company. Who even knew those workplaces existed?? He was SUPER cool. We clicked instantly, and I would work for him in a second. Unfortunately, at the time of our meeting, he (and HR) thought the current vacancies were a step down for me, but he promised to pass my deets along to some contacts. And in the meantime, he’s offered to hook me up with inside access to all the assessments! Major score, right??

So today, several weeks later, he followed up with me on the contacts and he emailed me my first set of test results. I gotta say: I come across totally boring (middle-of-the-road!!) and rather ill-equipped for leadership roles (which is ok, but that kinda conflicts with some other tests I have done elsewhere that say I’d be a really good leader). Oh well, I’m just adding this to my collection of data. Fortunately, the bigger news is that the Web Manager is open to speaking with me about the web producer role… maybe this will be my in!!! Muhahahaha. I could really use a change of scenery right about now. Cross your fingers for me!

In other news, last week was rough. Truthfully, I think it was a combo of a bunch of things: the life story assignment, a meeting with asshole at work, more vision plan project bullshit, Remy choking (again), I got an email from my former manager that just made me miss him (they’re in Berlin now), and then a bunch of friends are grappling with some serious life shit…

After a weekend of gaining fresh perspective, I’m almost completely pulled back together this week. I think. 😉 Like I said before, vivacity is making a comeback. And Remy is doing better. John calls her the furry python now, because apparently she likes to swallow things whole. He is also convinced that she’s trying to commit suicide since last week was the second time this choking thing has happened. Really, the whole incident was straight out of the movies: I was on the phone with my dad, super frustrated, trying to provide iPhone tech support (My father never remembers where the “home” button is!!) Then amidst the commotion, Remy ate a mini chicken wing that fell out as John was mixing stuff in a bowl in the kitchen. She swallowed it whole, spun around a few times, and then abruptly fell over with vacant eyes. John got the drumstick to go down, but shiit, between my father and Remy, I’m going to have a fucking heart attack. For now, the good news is, dad’s iPhone stuff is all working, and Remy is alive!! Whew!

I’m off today: chilling at home and doing some homework. The teach sent us these quotes, which I thought were pretty damn good:

“Our lives improve only when we take chances — and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” — Walter Anderson

“The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else — we are the busiest people in the world.” –Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

My Uncover Your Calling class continues to be way intense. Last week we each got 15 minutes to tell our “life story.” I was a mess. I saw my therapist earlier at 4p that day. I cried during our meeting: I lamented that I recently realized I was projecting my parents’ style of quasi-conditional love (tied to expectations) on to John– always being super critical and focused on things that should be done better… Basically, I was perpetuating a form of emotional abuse…

My therapist brought up self-acceptance and how I should learn to feel emotions without having to DO anything about them. I don’t really understand that concept. I feel like I have confidence in my strengths, but I’m always obsessing over my weaknesses, because I want to be better. I dunno: I just can’t seem to find that balance between self-acceptance and self-improvement. I have a fear of complacency and stagnation. Ultimately, I suppose the point of her statement is that I have to somehow find a way to let go of things or circumstances that I cannot change. So this whole debacle at work: rather than feeling anger and outrage and going on my whole tirade, I should consider just feeling sad at the loss of my manager and friend and sad about the demise of a once awesome workplace. But I dunno: why feel anything without tying it to action? Seems like just sitting and being aware of those emotions is not really useful. Shrug. Then again, I suppose trying to take action is equally useless.

So yeah, later that same day, I did my life story. What a strange thing to encapsulate 3+ decades into a few minutes of key moments/stories. I was super stressed about it, just because I wanted to well, select the right content to tell a story with essence, you know? Also, I knew I was going to lose my shit talking about my parents and my brother. It’s so lame and all day I kept trying to train myself to NOT cry, but fuck, no more than TEN seconds into my turn, and the waterworks just went on full blast. Truth be told, I always was a crybaby as a kid. Seriously, I cried A LOT– about everything and anything. And I was like 100x more serious than I am now. Imagine that.

Otherwise, the Uncover Your Calling class is insightful. It’s a shitload of work, but I am trying to believe in the process and hope that I will reach some clarity soon. I mean, the exercises are interesting and thought-provoking. My mind just feels tired. I’m sleeping a lot again on the weekends.

I did gain some perspective last weekend. My best mother friend called: she was talking about other things, but she kept saying, “Life is short.” And in my heart, I know that. So I’m going to stop pretending like I don’t have choices. (Practically everything John and I do is about creating a life with freedom and choice!) And this might just have to be a time when I stop trying to test/prove myself, and I step away and just get back to what’s good.

In other news, I’m going to start eating into that PTO stash soon enough. Seattle in mid-June and then Cowboy Country at the end of June!! John surprised me by suggesting a week in Jackson Hole, WY!! Yee haw! He actually says he needs a vacation. I am so excited. We’re going to check out Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. I am so stoked to live out my Legends of the Fall dream. United Air miles, baby! And I’m going to use my Lounge passes too.