Um, Hi. or 16 things to read while I go off and play with my mind again

1) I think I'm getting better. Than I was. I've been sick. Had a scare over the weekend, during which my left leg swelled up in some unusual bodily joke, making it difficult to, say, walk, bend, sit, think. By Monday I thought I should let the doctor see it. I was glad I had opted for COBRA (bounced check notwithstanding) because he took one look at it and said, it could be a blood clot so we need to get it scanned. He sent me forthwith to a vascular surgeon's office, to which I drove more than a little frightened, waiting for the eventual clot dislodging, black out, vehicle wreck, and ultimate death, as I drove. Thankfully for me and the rest of the drivers on I-75, this didn't happen. They scanned both legs, no clot, overjoyed I went home and collapsed.

2) Decided that I've been dissociated from my own body for a very long time and that I'd better get re-aquainted with it before I kill it, either accidentally or more accurately on purpose. Called massage therapist.

3) Found my trauma therapists email, finally, and emailed her to set up an appointment. Hoping she can help me find out where my life went. The last time I saw her was five minutes before Ketchum called to say boy did they have a deal for me!

4) I love my kid. I want to be the source of her happiness and well being, not her the source of mine.

5) Still miss my husband. I have not heard his voice in two weeks. Thank God for email.

6) I hear spammers in Virginia can face two years in prison now for spamming--did I hear that right?

7) An earthquake apparently rocked our house yesterday morning. Jenna and I slept through it. I got her to school late, and the teacher said--Oh, was it the earthquake? And I said, earthquake? And she said YES! You heard about it, right? The earthquake? And I said, Earthquake? The rest of the day went similarly.

8) I had two calls from clients/prospects today. And it's only 2.

9) I have received no check for work I did a month ago from one client. And it's already 2.

10) Taxes are in.

11) Knee socks are out.

12) It's hotter than a witch's tit here. We need a new furnace/central air system. Don't get me started.

13) I have decided there is some fundamental and very profound difference between consuming and beholding, between the predatory and the empathetic, which I am having fun drawing about in powerpoint.

14) I am reading

15) Gary Turner still scares me.

16) Did I miss something on social software this week?

This is why.

Film at 11:

Joy.

See the basketball hoop? Hi daddy!

dear jenna

My Dear Jenna,

I was reading through my archives, the posts that I've written here. I noticed something that made me very sad. I noticed that I've written a lot about how hard of a job it is to be a mom, how you can be--say--amazingly creative and spirited and wonderful, and also challenging at times. About the fun things we do, and the frustrating times we share.

But I haven't said how much I love you here. Not to you. And it should be written here. So you always have it.

So let me tell you loudly, right here: I love you my Jenna.

I love you with all of my heart and soul in all of the ways I know how to, the ways I understand how to.

You know what I ask you, right? How much do I love you, baby? "A million trillion zillion and more!" Right? Yeh. And more. MORE! Can you imagine how much that is? How big that is? It's absolutely HUGE!!!!

I love everything about you, inside and out, from your soft skin to your dark eyes filled with light. You are a strong young girl with fire and wit and warmth and love and kindness for everyone you know. That's who you are, and I love you so.

What Mommy wants, more than anything else in the whole world, is for you be happy. To grow straight and strong and be filled with warmth and acceptance. To have peace. To be open and wise, to accept and show love. To be that amazing person you are already becoming.

If I could give my finger, my hand, my arm to be sure that you would never hurt, that nothing, no one would ever make you feel badly, I would. But I can't. Instead I can give you the tools and assurance that will help you come to understand that strength is in you. It's yours.

I will write more to you in time. I need to go rest now. I am going into your bedroom to check on you. You took off your pajamas tonight because you couldn't sleep. You know how you do that sometimes? Well, I'm going in to slip your shirt back on and pull the blankets up, to make sure your Care Bear is still in bed with you.

Then I'll rest too.

Bless you, Jenna. I love you always.

mommy

you don't have to die in order to live up to his image

Steroids are a very magical drug. They let you breathe when you can't. That is amazing. When you're gasping and coughing, they're a life saver, literally.

They also make you quite insane, volitile, tempermental, especially as you taper down.

They make you bloated, they make you eat everything, they make you retain water. They make you think on one hand everything is a good idea, and on the other hand, that nothing is a good idea.

This, I could do without.

Today my left leg is swollen, more than normal, and feels full, water or something. I've been drinking LOTS of water to try to flush out my system. Called the doc and he said to keep it up and see how tomorrow is--with a few caveats. Never mind all that.

I can't let go, release the stress. I'm trying.

I've spent my sick days this week with my laptop in bed. It was kind of like "staying home," since I usually work from the livingroom couch. I took some time off and went on vacation upstairs.

I've been having conversations with myself. I'm a good listener.

Some of these have gone like this:

"You have permission to be sick. You also have permission to get better."

"huh?"

"That thing you do--that feeling of living on borrowed time."

"Oh, yeh. I hate that. I know it's not normal, my thinking that I should leave Jenna's favorite pajamas out in case I don't make it home from a drive into town, that I should be sure her bed is comfortable and clean and cool and cotton and ready for her, in case she has to climb into it that night without me next to her."

"Yes that. It's not surprising, that baggage, since you almost died after Jenna was born, since you've already lived longer than your father did, but it's more than that."

"I think so."

"It's more than that--it's about your role then. The role of the innocent child who didn't know."

--more later. this is exhausting me.

Nina, as promised...

My baby just cares for me...

OH! You mean, no more direct deposit?

Lesson 3 from the land of the freelancer is this: no more direct deposit. no more checks show up in your online banking account magically.

I never fully understood it. The they-put-money-in/you-take-money-out thing better known as direct deposit. It's all so bloodless. So sanitized. You work hard, or sometimes you screw off, and either way every two weeks money is slipped invisibly, while you sleep, or maybe even when you're going to the bathroom, in your account.

No effort is involved here. It's magic. You don't have to look anyone in the eye when you get your check. You don't have to resent the 70 extra hours you worked when the sweet HR maven hands out the paychecks, or feel a nagging pang of guilt because you accomplished nothing and are getting the same check as last week.

Direct Deposit is like a parallel universe. You're busy doing other things while elves put some money in your account. Some of us never even knew quite how much. Somewhere around x. That's close enough for jazz. No walk to the bank or drive to the bank. Don't get your hands messy with looking at ink on paper, or standing in long lines. Just let us slip it in there while you're taking a leak and everyone's happy.

So turn around and I'm now accountable for my account. In other words, if no invisible checks go in, no invisible money appears. I now know this, since I just bounced my first COBRA check.

At the same time, I just received my first grand--a live check--for a freelance project I worked on some weeks back.

The bounce doesn't feel real, because it happened behind my back, just like direct deposit once did. This is more like direct withdrawl. Of the $30 fee anyway.

But the check that arrived in the mail, with my client's pretty logo at the top and my name typed it, that felt real.

Now, I match the two up, use real-world deposit to pay the invisible withdrawl, and I'm left with....

a receipt.

thank you for your transaction.


nimrod, nimrod, nimrod, nimrod.

bad girl bad girl, watcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you...

so I'm watching cops.

on fox.

If you've ever seen your job disappear, or have decided to leave it based on a really shitty offer they gave you to keep you around, you know that watching cops at 2 in the afternoon is not exactly evidence that you're healing from the trauma.

I hate cops.

I also hate all the daytime judge shows: judge hatchett, judge judy, judge joe brown, and that texas justice guy.

You can tell I've been watching those too, huh.

okay.

I've been pretty sick--legitimately sick with a sinus infection and more.

the more part is joblessitis.

joblessitis is sort of like SARS, but you live.

The symptoms are: watery eyes (too much TV viewing on a television that you can't afford to pay cable for, so you watch through snowy cabless reception), nausea (comensurate with arrival of bills in the mail), depression and despair (can you spell, a-l-o-n-e?), followed usually by catatonic rocking on the slab floor of the garage (realizing you have no where important to drive to).

I'm not sure when they'll come for this bad girl, but I'm pretty sure they'll come. Periods of my life have been a cops episode in training.

It's one of those things you console yourself with when you're feeling like a useless gob of human flesh: 1) I've never been in jail. 2) I've never been on cops. 3) I've never committed a felony. scratch that. I've never been caught committing a felony.

bad girl bad girl, what I'm gonna do? what I'm gonna do when they come for me?

I like the venacular of cops.

"MAN, stop runnin your mouth so much--just shut UP!"

you just don't get to hear honest human communication like that on American Idol. Or in the board rooms of most corporations.

"Jeneane, I'd like to add something here--Let me float a balloon and see what you think."

"No, MAN. Stop runnin your mouth so much--just shut UP!"

the fever is down, but i'm congested like a mofo.

more as my mind regenerates.

For other fine reading, I see RageBoy is taking himself seriously these days. ;-) Halley on the other hand, writes about donating her snow globes to science and the science of spanking.

Keep Shelley Online

I'm not to sick to give a shit about making sure Shelley has hosting services. And maybe even some gas for her trips if we all chip in. Go Bird!!

And thanks to Jonathon for being her Marek.

how much could my face hurt?

i think i know. i have jenna's sinus infection now. my teeth, my face, my cheeks, oh my teeth. ouch ouch ouch ouch. ooohhh.

in pain and going down for the night any way I can.

more when I can.

found antibiotic.

taking.

darvocet too

jenna whirling and speeding around me, high on steroids and albuterol,

and breathing just right again.

that matters more than anything.


-------

in the pain
i feel
the absence of
her
white cotton sheets
hospital corners
cool and
ironed pristine crisp
folded back
to make a triangle
saying this bed
is just for you.

her welcoming arms
bring me
saltines
and ginger ale and
a spoonful of
medicine
to help me
not dream

how many times she
felt my head, brushed
my cheek
a
cold wash cloth
hot water bottle
easing the hurt

she sat
lightly on my bed
bringing perfume
and soft blouse cuffs
and
a kindness I could hardly
accept

in my family
people paid attention
to the sick and the dying
we
sat vigils at bedsides
this is what we did
best

cracking pain
shattering
falling into
soft cotton
not knowing
how to be well
This is our legacy.

Because I knew today was Raw

We lose a voice of voices today. None other like Nina Simone.



i'll try to put up a song link later.

Hello Goodnight

raw. tired. late night/early morning breathing treatments for jenna. the worst asthma flare up in a couple of years. still trying to figure it out. According to the pediatrician, who was actually into spending a lot of time checking her today--a new younger doctor--she has a sinus infection--a whopping one, he says. He had to do another treatment in the office--I'd just done one before we left.She was so tight she was coughing her head off. After the second treatment she told me, "Mom, before my heart felt all squished, and now it feels open!"

Anyone with an asthmatic kid knows what that means:

steroid time.

great.

shoot me now. really. a quick one. the temple. aim well, please.

Got caught in the rainstorm on the way to fill the prescriptions, which of course, weren't covered because the insurance company hasn't gotten my checks yet. Krogers was nice enough to fill the RXs for half of the amount and add a refill. So when I go back to get the refill, we should (capital should) have coverage. That was a really nice suggestion. A bright spot in a shitty morning.

We shopped drenched.

Did the meds in the isle at Krogers. After the treatment at the pediatrician's office, and the steroid liquid, and the antibiotic, she felt so much better I agreed to let her to to school for two hours, at which time I would fetch her home for another treatment. She begged and pleaded to go to school. I thought maybe I could catch a two-hour nap while she was there.

We got to school, get drenched some more on the way into the building. Jenna has a melt down and wants to come home. So I bring her home with me. It's a good thing. She's already coughing again.

By now I've missed my interview with the unemployment office, because when you're doing it solo there's no one to take important phone calls, and when you forget your cell phone because your kid is wheezing, you're screwed. Not that I would have known what number to call anyway.

So now we're home. wet. getting undressed and going to climb into bed.

I hope for the next six years.

Do not disturb.

ruminate

Sleep, tracing your breath
with mine
Watch
the arch of your
eyebrow, your
lashes flutter
I try to climb
inside your dream.

You are so far
I can't touch
your danger
can't feel you strain
the angle of
your elbow
how it juts above
your head
as you
show me
the place that hurts

Rumination
doesn't help, you are
to far
I wrap you in
plastic
set you aside
for safe keeping

The frog is back

He needs to go find a new home, say, in the woods, you know, in nature. Not on my door. Soon I will cook him if he doesn't hop away.

New tagline?

The only lies I tell here are the lies I tell myself.

I told you so

Shut up, Now.

The Truth the Dead Know

-by Anne Sexton

Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.

We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.

My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.

And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in the stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.

You tell me what it means

more here.

Chapter 1: Take 22

The effort it takes to remember my life jolts me into familiar pain—my side that hurts, my right side to be exact, right under my rib, the place that always hurts, the place where I’ve been certain I have a malignancy for going on five years now.

A few days ago in my dreams I was inside my throat, turned the corner at the back, and saw several polyps. I knew they were polyps in the way you know such things in dreams. I didn’t know why I was seeing them, but they terrified me. One in particular looked bad. Jagged, not round, edges. Black. Raised Like the ones they show you when you search the Web looking for pictures of hang nails, and suddenly you’re lost in a dozen sites regaling the symptomotology and treatment options for a range of the fatal illnesses.

Something happened in the dream. As I stared in horror at my own malignancy, it began to rise from my throat’s surface, and was quite suddenly encased in a beautiful silver armor, which, in time, shrank the tumor and gave it a guilded, smooth, round edge.

Did it heal itself?

Did I heal it?

Or was it a message that something is lurking. A warning.

I left my dream, as I always do, six or seven times a night.

Life number 13. Lucky.

Because I’ve died at least a dozen times inside myself.

When I think back, way back, trying to uncover, or maybe construct--only my therapist knows for sure--the missing pieces of my childhood, I realize I had three of them. Not therapists. More than three. But childhoods. Each interrupted by a major life event, each split, or at least me within them, from one another.

Birth to 5: Mother, Father, Sister, Brother
TRAUMA: Father died
5-12: Mother, Sister, Brother
TRAUMA: Mother re-marriage
12-now: Mother, Step-Father, Step-Sister, Sister, Brother
TRAUMA: Final attempt at individuation

That’s more than enough childhoods for anyone. Two too many for me.

I say “Final attempt at individuation” because I don’t think I’ll live through another attempt if this one doesn’t work out. It’s simple biology, instinct even: Eat or be eaten.

Save myself.

I’m the only one who can.

fine I think

I haven't digested the email from George this morning where he relates the car accident he was in.

Not really. As no word came from him yesterday, not since the day before, I entered that place of acceptance, of not knowing in or out, just is or was. I have gotten used to that place. There are days when I welcome knowing that I am in control of, have influence over, absolutely nothing. Not even breathing. Not even whether or not breathing continues. Nothing but here and writing. Sometimes not even that.

I opened his email this morning, so glad to find it there, to hear his voice sounding strong and loving, and jolted by his tale of riding with the couple who's studio he's working at, his friends, in a severe rain storm, and of the car losing control, and the wreck.

How may thousands of miles away is he? I knew something was wrong yesterday, but if I had let my mind flit across the hundreds of constructs of disaster where I usually reside in unhealthy comfort, I would have been paralyzed, not able eat or speak, to talk to friends, to relate, to warm and be warmed.

So I waited. And this morning I find out the wreck was bad enough to have totaled the car, but George, thank God, is fine. He said his neck actually feels better. With two severely damaged disks and a bone spur in his neck going into the accident, I can only think (read: hope) some chiropractic adjustment took place with the impact.

PTSD. It's not that you consciously fall to the ground in a heap with every blast. It's that with every surprise, every other surprise flashes back. Pow, pow, pow, whatif, whatif, whatif.

But I didn't.

I can't name what I feel. Joy that he is okay. Joy that I hear joy in his writing. Everything else, I'm leaving where it is. Won't let it surprise me this time.

Love you, George.

Writing Each Other Out of Existence

We don't know, either universally or individually, exactly what our relationship to the dead is. Individually, it constitutes part of our work, our work of love, not of hate or destruction; we must think through each relationship. We can think of this with the help of writing, if we know how to write, if we dare to write. Also with the help of dreams: they give us the marvelous gift of constantly bringing back our dead alive, with the result that at night we can talk with our dead. Each of us, individually and freely, must do the work that consists of rethinking what is your death and my death, which are inseparable. Writing originates from this relationship. In what is often inadmissable, contrary, terribly dangerous, and risks turning into complacency--which is the worst of all crimes: It originates here.

--Helene Cixous, Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing

The private public dance

There is, it seems, a constant undercurrent of rumination in the blogworld over how much we say about ourselves, how much we tell, what we show, how far we go, what we don’t disclose, what we hide, where we pull up.

In other words: how public should we be?

I’m noted for being a blogger who’s pretty public, open, honest. I think I am. I hope so, because practicing being real in my blogging has helped me become moreso in my offline life… One feeds the other. I gain insight from the things I say here, insight that helps me be more real with myself.

My archives are testimony to me, they are me looking into my own rear view mirror, thinking things like: “What was I THINKING?” or “Wow, yes, it was like that,” or “I can’t believe I wrote that out loud…How many people read it?” The pattern of re-examination informs me. I grow because of it.

I think too many bloggers get trapped in a catch-22 over self-exposure, though. They start out with a few self-telling, honest, often painful posts, and suddenly put pressure on themselves to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth in all manner of all things on their blogs. Some of us who tend toward very public expression of very private places begin to feel an unreasonable responsibility for 24/7 exposure. Even begin to resent blogging. And who wouldn’t.

Perhaps pure-personal-truth-telling can be sustained, but does it need to? Who puts the pressure on—our readers or ourselves?

Unless we’re going to live here, naked, all of us, with a real time voice recording of the goings on inside our heads and hearts, we can’t sustain the open-wound model. And we shouldn’t have to.

At the same time, I’ve cycled through the next part of the honesty phase many times. The next phase is where I pull up. Don’t really have anything to say. Start thinking of deep dark secrets to reveal because the need to name and share these things is still present, but I’ve already told you most of what I want to tell you about the place I’m in.

Generally from there, I gravitate toward humor and absurdity, because that is a universal language. And even in those things, my state of mind is revealed to you.

We don’t need to share everything, you and I.

The important part for me is not writing about those edgy, private, risky places. It’s writing from those places. I have said that before. When deeply personal and volatile things—real or imagined—are going on in my life, my inclination is to share them here. But not always. What I do, when life issues are too close to the bone to share, is use the energy and passion and, yes, even panic, to drive what I write here.

You see, so, it’s not writing about the events, it’s letting the associated emotions wash over you, digging down into them, and then writing from that place. Stepping down, as Cixous would say.

So maybe this post is my way of saying to those who have been wondering whether or not they’ve gone too far--those who are anxious about what they’ve written, not written, who knows, who doesn’t—that you can use that very angst to power your writing. Even when you’re not writing about your current state of mind and heart, we can feel when you’re writing from it. Every single time.

Well, that’s how I do it. Or try to.

laci's song

I've just spent the last 10 minutes listening to this piano piece, from Laurie, which I linked to the other day, while clicking "Auto" on this slideshow linked off of Laci Peterson's site. By adjusting the speed of the slide show up a bit, I was amazed at the power these two unrelated online pieces have when played in concert.

Car washes are boring

Flush with Emotion

Images from my last day.

The Silo

This laptop has a much bigger screen than my previous Dell. It’s so pretty and easy to see everything. The only thing that seems weird so far is the keyboard—I may stop back by the store and have them check it. They warranty everything for the first three months, and then Dell picks up the warranty for the next three months. By then I should have given this puppy a major workout!

I can’t believe how big the screen is. Wow!

Hello? You guys must all be able to fit inside this display.

Now I’ll be moving files over again—if I’m slow with posting it’s just that I’m going to have to spend some time getting a bunch of files over to this computer.

Question to you—my work computer had virus protection from work. What do those in the know (that would be you) use or recommend for virus protection? RB says go Norton. Like an idiot I had ordered Macafee before he said that. I think it was causing some problems on the other machine. I don’t want a virus program that is hypervigilant. I don’t want it hogging up memory (I got 128 for now, and will need it). So what are some good options, and does anyone use Macafee who’s happy with it?

This is fun, relaxing. My eyes are closed. I haven’t closed my eyes and typed in a long time. Ahhh. Eyes closed, headed for open space, empty, blue and yellow, purple circles and fonts with no names. This is what it’s about for me. Blogging straight, no chaser. Sink down and let it come, in spasms at first, then in waves, smooth, carrying me.

I go back to the woods beside the barn when I get to this place. The woods where I looked up at the rainy sky in wonder and caught an inch worm in my mouth as it hung agape tilted skyward. Those woods. I don’t know why. I can smell them. I can smell my own four-year-old coat, the blue one with grey trim. A mixture of Johnson & Johnson shampoo from my hair and wet pine.

In those woods, I can look back at the silo. For me, like the Jamaican sea, the thing I can’t seem to get back to. I never went inside that silo. Never got to see it inside out, though I used to think about it a lot. It was a point of great mystery to me. Why was it there? What was it supposed to do? And why wasn’t I allowed to go in it? I can still see that giant white bullet jutting skyward past the barn. One year a storm took the top off. From then on, I guess that silo was just like me, open skyward, in wonder and awe, waiting for something to fall in.

For You, Daddy

Jenna was missing her daddy today. When I wasn't looking she swiped some black-and-white photos I had taken of George many moons ago from my dresser drawer and had glued them onto a sheet of white paper. Beneath each photo she had written simply, "Dad."

She said she wanted to show him, so I had the idea of blogging it. He's been online from Germany a few times, so when you see this Daddy, wave back!

Click on the picture for a movie of Jenna showing off her creation. It starts out dark but gets brighter at the end. Over the weekend we're going to try again.



Hello Daddy--we love you!

slumberland

I love this lady.

I bet you love her now too.

How Do I Say Thank You?

She's here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I'm so glad. Wow. Unbelievable. I'm working on her now. This is my new refurbished Dell; I bought it from the computer store over by Jenna's school. I eyed it a week or so ago, and began doing my research. In the end, I liked the place, and I think I got a pretty good deal. A 650 MZ, 10 gig hard drive, Dell Lattitude with Ethernet/double modem card, CDRW (swappable floppy), big mo-fo display, already had windows 98SE and MS Office on. As well as some other goodies. I talked them down to $700.

With the help of my good friends here, she's mine. You all contributed more than $500 to the cause! I'm not sure how to say thank you. Really. This is amazing. I'm speeding along again. Clickety clack. Postedy post!

I thought you might want to see her:



And her and me (don't ask about my hair):



And how happy I am (or how much I miss George--you be the judge):



Thank you Laurie, Marek, George, RageBoy, Meg, Tom, Frank, Sheila, Betsy, and Kevin.

If I forgot anyone, please please tell me so I can add your name. I've had three different emails set up on three different computers in the last week and a half, so I'm not zactly organized.

Again, thanks for helping me keep at it. Now I can burn the midnight oil...



You guys make me so happy.

Thank you a hundred times.

Holy Shit--Did I Blow it for CNN, or am I Just Brilliant?

From The Smoking Gun Today

From Jeneane Yesterday

Yah, it's happened before, me and my ideas. But rarely fewer than 24 hours apart.

While all news organizations prepare obituaries in advance of the deaths of famous individuals, the folks at CNN inadvertently gave the Internet-surfing public a chance to preview how the network's web site would note the demise of Vice President Dick Cheney, Ronald Reagan, and a few other prominent figures.

The good folks on Fark apparently found the obituaries.

I'm Spooked. Too bad they didn't have Jako.

five years peace out

Well, the check finally arrived today. It buys me maybe three weeks to get it together and see if I can make a go at my own business without having to split again--jeneane the good corporate citizen/jeneane the passion blogger. If there are even any more good corporate citizen gigs out there. I'm beginning to wonder.

Fed-ex knocked on my screen door and left the 9x11 envelope on the floor of my pollen-stained porch. One little package, as thin as a dime, all that's left of a five-year commitment, being among the few with a clue, the celebrated achievers.

I'm old. I know the scene. Been there done it--should be no surprise. Then why do the tears come? Why do I think of all the overnights I pulled at the office, fuzzy slippers and blanket beside my computer, Jenna waking up in the morning wondering where I'd gone, George finding her crying on the basement steps: "Mom had to stay at work all night--she'll be home soon," and where was I? I was getting out the RFPs that would help bring in the biggest wins in the history of the firm. Not once, not twice, but three of them. Never mind two solid years of billing never less than 180 hours a month, usually in the 200s, during richer times.

Never mind. I know.

It's the economy, stupid.

Never mind.

Never mind.

And it's not like I didn't want to go. I could have stayed. On their terms I could have stayed. Was encouraged to stay. But those terms weren't terms at all.

So I repeat my mantra over and over: when you get an offer you can't not refuse, refuse it.

I think. I hope.

Never mind.

Today we're un insured. Jenna's got that look again--sneezing up a storm. Hopefully just allergies. I'm scouring the house looking for my stinking COBRA form, figuring I have to at least start it, then see if we can pay it.

If the government really wanted to stimulate the economy and encourage entrepreneurship, they would figgure out how to make this health insurance quagmire work. I could meet the challenge of starting my own business and running lean for a year or two if I didn't have the added burden of paying nearly $1000 a month just for COBRA health (not dental, not vision, just health).

Why not take that burden off of the new free agents of this economy. Why can't the government contribute to health coverage for those who get laid off and really want to contribute to the economy by starting their own business. Why not unyoke us from the outrageous cost of COBRA, or the alternative of declining insurance and living with the fear that a single hospital visit could wipe you out? Suddenly big corporations would have cost-effective happy free agents providing services; consultants would grow their businesses, teaming up with other smart ex-corporate colleagues, all of whom could focus on moving business ahead instead of tossing and turning at night wondering if their child's next cold will turn into strep.

A thin cardboard Fed-Ex envelope with a piece of paper inside that should have another zero on the end of the printed number. But it doesn't. And I'm not surprised.

Three weeks, maybe.

Nap. Bank. Coffee.

peace out.

Billy Boy, I Miss Ya.

Am I the only one who misses this guy?

Color me silly, but in reviewing the neurotic/psychotic models of leadership, I'd rather have a fiscally responsible sex addict than a pathological narcissist with an unbearable sense of entitlement in the White House.

maybe it's just me.

turn the paige

Just found Paige Waehner's weblog, and was immediately sucked in by the great writing. No kidding. Paige apparently kicks ass, not just as a writer, but as a fitness trainer too. I so much love when bloggers blog heart while they also manage to remain respected experts in their careers.

I used to have a career.

No, but really, read Paige. You'll find depth, abandon, sadness, joy. Then look at her published works on fitness. You'll find expertise, technique, control, professionalism. Which makes her, basically, a cool coconut in my book.

In other news, I turn the paige tonight in an hour and 1/2 becoming among the nations uninsured. Shelley tackled the issue recently with her usual sensitivity and insight. I hadn't thought of the even more pressing need for insurance in a time of a global disease pandemic, but Shelley reminded me.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to contact another broker about plans. In the mean time, while we're not really covered specifically, in the event of a catastrophe, we do have the right to pick up COBRA within the next 60 days. As long as we pay the back premiums at that time, which would be about $3K.

Likely. Not.

If anyone knows a great and honest insurance broker in the Atlanta area, email me please. The idiot I'm currently dealing with at BC/BS trying to get information out of is laaaame.

So many other stupid little things going on, I'd need a new blog just to list them. And since I'm too tired to start a new blog called "Stupid things we did today" this week, I'll be going to sleep now.

Thanks to all for the computer fund contributions. More news on that soon. I'm thinking seriously about that reconditioned Dell. I keep thinking about it. This is a good change for me.

Another thing I thought yesterday while I was driving, when I heard that BushCo were seriously thinking of spanking Syria was that before this is over it won't be an axis of evil, it will be an octogon of evil. RageBoy said he heard New Jersey's on the list too.

What rhymes with MOAB? Maybe that's what Paige says when she's fitness training: "MO AB! MO AB!"

I have sufficiently drugged and sleep deprived myself enough for one day.

say goodnight gracie.

the kind of things I think about while I'm driving

I'm not saying this is normal. Understand that right off the bat. But I was thinking today as I drove Jenna to dance that if I started blogging obituaries for famous people who are still alive, and used all the right key words, like "Michael Jackson" "death" "found dead" "today" stuff like that, then by the time the famous person actually did die, I'd probably be the number one hit on google for people looking for information on the story.

And wouldn't they be surprised to see it had been blogged like five years previous.

Mind fuck.

In real world newspapers, one of the first jobs of newbie reporters is (or at least used to be) to write the obituaries. Although mainstream media has the templates ready to go for the untimely deaths of newsworthy celebrities, they can't go to print with them until event and template collide.

But I can.

Like I said... I'm not saying it's a good idea; it's just the kind of thing I think about while I'm driving.

In the quiet of uncertainty, a loaded word explodes

In the realm of could things get any more horrific, The Washington Post reports that the bodies of a "headless woman" and a "fetus" which might in fact be Laci Peterson and the baby she was carrying, washed up from the San Francisco bay today.

Another paper reported that the head and legs were missing from the woman's body.

People who have been following the story are leaving messages of hope and sorrow for Laci's family on the guest book of the family's site.

I found myself checking Laci's site over the last few months. Especially when her husband stopped cooperating easily with the police. I have to admit, I was playing junior private detective, seeing if I could come up with clues that made sense of the events.

Woman disappears Christmas Eve. Her husband is allegedly boating. Her baby's due February 10th, according to the family's site. That means she was maybe 7 weeks away from having her baby. I remained stumped. Nothing about this disappearance made sense. And that was what kept me checking back from time to time, seeing if they had any new leads. Any clues as to what happened to Laci.

Whatever the findings are after today, whoever the bodies turn out to belong to, it's clear that we are about to witness the unfolding of a heinous and horrific crime as investigators piece together the evidence, the timelines, the motives, etc.

Brace yourselves.

Full stop.

What caught my attention beyond the details of the story and sadness I felt from those wandering through Laci's guest book, was a single choice of a single word in the Post article.

Fetus.

That word.

The police used it in a quote, and the Post used it in the headline and first paragraph. Interesting, at least to me.

As I've pieced it together, Laci was about 7 weeks away from having the baby when she disappeared, maybe 6. She was, then, 33 or 34 weeks, or 7 1/2 months pregnant, as her family notes on their site.

I beg your pardon, but that's not a fetus, it's a baby.

And if it's him, his name was Connor.

Whoever is responsible for the death of this mother and baby should be charged with the murder of both human beings. And here comes my bold statement: When a 33-week pregnancy ends suddenly, the world hasn't lost a fetus, we have lost a baby.

I sense something going on here. An initial attempt to tell us how to feel. Perhaps.

But it's too early to discern that. I'm not sure what the motivation is on the part of the Police or the Post was in choosing the word Fetus. But I hope to find out in the days to come, watching how mainstream media, investigators, and the family come understand what happened to this "unborn child," as the Post also called the "fetus," and his mother.

Now I'll be silent, because between the not knowing and knowing, that seems appropriate.

thinking

'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
'I never know what you are thinking. Think.'

--From The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot

Undone from the mind down, inside in, restraints off, left with just me.

Tired of the battle, I'm thinking, it's easier, I'm thinking, to fight against chains, be fed by the noble cause of revolt, of versus, than it is to win.

What is lost in winning? Voice. What is there to say? Where does it go when there is nothing to resonate against. No purpose, fire, knowing so clearly what is wrong. Nothing left to make right means nothing left.

Without the push pull, the resistance of, the fight against, then who am I? To be here, invisible and inert, I don't exist, no not really.

Still, the odd rhythms pound my head, heart, early in the morning and in the quiet dark, reminding me that I'm not not. Maybe there is something left to say. Or will be.

But where then. And when?

I am thinking I'm not sure.

Thank You

I just logged on to the Prescription Benefits site that I used in my last hurrah to fill 90 days worth of RXs for the 13 different medicines we take regularly, and some not regularly, and found that the order shipped yesterday--just in time to fall under the old (read: good) insurance, which means it just cost a lot less at $400 than it would have if they had filled any of them after the 15th!

Right after that, I rode the positivity wave over to the unemployment site to see if they had bothered to add me to the system yet (they hadn't last week), and there I was! Holy cow, certifying was a breeze. I don't know what any of it means, but I'm just doing what they tell me, one step at a time.

Just a little good news that reminds me someone's listenin'.

NOW I can go lay down and rest.

rip roarin at 2:30 a.m.

Decided to tackle taxes tonight. Nothing makes you feel more useless than kindergarten math that you somehow can't get right. Well, all the pieces are FINALLY together except for one. I suppose most people put those end-of-the-year 1098s from their mortgage companies in a safe place. Where's my safe place? Is it at your house? Cause it's not here. No sireee. Can't find the damn thing anywhere.

Undaunted, I called the mortgage company at 1 this morning. Amazed by my own resourcefulness, I even managed to find our account number and the bank's phone number in my PAYEES section of the online banking site I mangle each month.

Just ONE piece of information away from being done. How excited was I when I dialed the mortage goons, only to try entering the account number six times before realizing we don't exist.

I hate it when that happens.

On the seventh call I got a human being, who explained that their systems were down. See, they still need humans to apologize for machines. Job security.

Call back at 5 a.m. central time, she says. I'm still using my math powers to figure out what that is for me--I'm thinking 7.

Anyway, that's why I haven't written today. Between taxes and insurance (just realizing d-day for health ins is the 15th) and unemployment and actually trying to market moi, I haven't written anything worthwhile in a week.

I am sorry.

But on the good news front, I think I found a refurbished-by-dell Dell laptop at the computer store I never saw before over by Jenna's school. They're asking $799, but I think I can get them down to $700 or so. I told the guy my blogger friends were raising money to get me a Dell and he said, "That's so cool...that's SO cool." You know, so I liked him right off the bat. It has a six-month warranty, it's got 98 SE on it and MS Office. But most of all, when I put my hands on the wrist rests, it felt soooooooo good.

But then I shake myself, say JENEANE! The mail man brought the COBRA information over the weekend. I don't think it hit me until I read the forms that in 1 more day we don't have health insurance.

I guess I thought that COBRA covered you for 60 or 90 (i'm in denial, so I don't remember which) days, but it doesn't really work like that--well it DOES, but you have to pay the premium from the first day after benefits are cancelled onward to get that coverage. In our case, just for health insurance (not dental or vision or anything) it's nearly $1,000 a month. If you're lucky and you don't need your insurance between that day and 60 days later, I think you make it scott free by saving 2 months on the premium before you say, "Yes, I accept COBRA." But if you do file a claim any time within that window, they grab all the back premiums from you as well, so you're out thousandssss. As if!

I started filling out the forms for Blue Choice PPO. In this case, the coverage isn't great, plus there's a 12-month waiting period on pre-existing conditions. So, they can deny you coverage on just about anything for the first year you pay them. That sweet deal is apparently $460 and change per month for a family.

I have boiled these two health plan characteristics down to two simple business models and have translated them below as per your urgent need:

Group COBRA Policy: Get good coverage but get screwed on money.
Individual Policy: Pay less money but get screwed on coverage.

Remember these two different approaches and you will have grasped the business models of health insurance companies in Amerika

love it or leave it.

The Leafy Sea Dragon

Yes, this is an actual sea horse, called the leafy sea dragon, because he looks like a floating dragon or twig or something. But he was HUGE! Nealy a foot I'm sure. He was Jenna's favorite.

how cool sea horses are?

can't help missing you so

back

and forth.

Jenna and I are home; george off to Europe for a couple of weeks' recording/business stuff. Chatanooga was a blast. Here's photo one, Jenna watching the stingrays at the Tenessee Aquarium...



more later.

Lost and Found

As I've been entertaining you lately with the many things I've lost since becoming entirely too stressed out over my recent non-employ situation, you deserve an update:

FOUND! HipTop, underneath the crap in my car. Will try to blog from the Jazz Festival sometime tomorrow.

LOST! The only card in the world where I had my savings account number and jenna's SS#. (yes, in one place, yes together, yes, lost)

FOUND! Old bottle of Xanax.

LOST! My Debit/Visa card. Still.

FOUND! The package of disposable razors I've bought twice now because they've been lost.

LOST! My mind.

Currently procrastinating on: Signing up for new health insurance, Doing taxes, Selling a car.

Currently in progress: Sandwich making and packing for road-trip to Tennesee tomorrow.

Completed! Doctor's visit (we all have meds), Pharmacy. Purchase of N95-rated masks for George, who's flying internationally late this weekend (not to Asia though), along with Cheese Doodles and Frittos for the drive tomorrow. Banking also done.

Aren't you happy I've at least left the house today? I'm tingling all over. It's raining and 30s or 40s here. I hope it's not pouring up in Gore country tomorrow.

Hold down the fort. Behave yourselves, or if you don't, at least blog it.

;-)

If I don't blog tonight, I'll try to blog on hiptop nation tomorrow.

best ya'll!

Stupid Brand Moves #2: When PR Is Bad for Your Health

Don't you hate it when this happens? The Smoking Gun reports that just in time for worldwide SARS hysteria, The Hong Kong Tourism Board dubbed the city the vacation destination that "Will Take Your Breath Away."

Ouch, babe.

Maybe they were thinking of Victoria Harbour, which reeks to high heaven, according to George.

Scroll down to see the Gun's scan of the half-page ad, which is appearing this month in some British pubs, including Cosmopolitan.

Apparently, the tourism campaign was in the hopper before the SARS outbreak hit front-page news.

They say there's no such thing as bad PR.

They also say there's a first time for everything.

wondering what I'll be when I grow up

I love TextPad. I think I could easily live in TextPad, maybe even forget writing online and just putter around in here all day. The words float effortlessly into the little white window here, like I remember it being with my Dell. Just think and float and fingers will follow.

I'm so glad it's here.

I was thinking earlier today about a lot of things. Like the taxes I haven't done and the phone calls I haven't made. Sleep I haven't gotten. Bills I haven't paid. Cat I haven't neutered. Checks I haven't received.

Stuff like that.

And things I can't remember. Like where I put my HipTop, my last remaining credit card, like gaps in my mind, dissociative states, splitting and other general trauma responses that have caught my interest of late.

Not for me of course. Oh no, I'm dandy.

Just those 6-10 million other folks around the U.S. Sure, you can call it research.

I start thinking of other research I'd like to do. I love to research and connect themes that tell a whole different story when you pair them together.

Then I'm thinking, I need to be working on a book. This is the perfect time. A book proposal at least. I've ended up in this jobless state for a reason, one of which may be to try my hand at the consulting thing. But the other may just be because I have something to say and I've had it to say for a very long time.

Then I come down to what. I've surveyed women and weblogging with the help of my sisters. But what to combine that with? By itself, it's not pumping with life's blood. It need something.

Stumped. It's right on the tip of my brain. What I'm supposed to be writing about, talking about, how to put it all together, or what parts to pull together.

Some reminders I don't want. Some truths I can tell here, but not more broadly.

Some I don't even want to tell myself.

And then what if I'm just supposed to be funny goofy sort of interesting me. Well then, this is the best place to do that.

I think I'm having career issues.

I am also sick of using the word "I" this week.

ideas?

Pardon Me, Boys...

The Sessum bunch is supposed to head up to Chattanooga this weekend to watch George play at the jazz festival there, and another gig after, after which said gigs we sleep, then drive back here and see him off over the sea for not too long this time. Says me.

Only problem is we're all sick. Not that kind of terrible sick like you're familiar with me going on and on about. I think this is job loss let down sick. Just enough defenses letting down to make you feel like shit without killing you. All three of us have ear aches. I guess we'd better get in to the doc with the $10 copay while we've got it--clock ticking on that. April 15 is the day I won't have taxes done and the day we won't have our good old insurace, etc.

Leaning toward going to BC/BS of GA PPO for a family policy. A couple cons--ONE, no stinking mental health benefits (attention health care smarties--the mind is only, like, the most important organ, or is it a muscle, or in my case it might be bone, in the body). Like zero. Nada. I think they pay $100 a day if you wind up on the inside for your troubles, which makes me just slightly nervous since I always keep tucked neatly in the left side of my gray matter that if worst comes to worst, I can have a one-month vacation hooked up to IV Valium. Just a rest, of course. Nothing permanent.

Call it a fantasy if you will.

SO no mental health benefits, and also some bizzare exclusionary 12-month waiting period for pre-existing conditions, which is basically anything you've ever had, so then unless I wind up with something fatal, which I had a dream last night I did indeed have, but more about that later, you're basically SOL if they decide to be nosing around.

I guess the deal is, insurance companies would prefer that you pay them for a year, during which time they do not to have to cover you for anything, after which time you will most likely be on some sappy employer's plan again, having remained on the first insurance company's plan just long enough for you to not have anymore pre-existing conditions, allowing them to brush you off their crusty lab coats before you cause them any trouble and politely begin your next 12-month waiting period.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!

Meanwhile, back at unemployment, I haven't appeared in the system yet. Which means I'm not sure what. The lady I spoke to the day I went in said CERTIFY WEDNESDAY OR YOU WILL HAVE COME HERE TODAY FOR NOTHING (Nothing, I tell you! - she didn't say that part, but it felt like she did). After an hour on hold today, another lady said, "Don't even TRY to certify til Sunday."

Ah mixed messages. Just like having a real job!

Meanwhile, I can only claim one week so far because the other week I did indeed work on my consulting stuff.

But hey, you don't see me whining. No more. Nut-uh. Too much to be thankful for.

Like that my dream last night, where I traveled inside my throat--what was I, some kind of surgical instrument?--around to the left, where I saw several polyps and one nasty looking malignancy, or at least I knew it to be such in my dream, because it was black and had jagged edges, and then a weird thing happened, it grew silver around the edges, kind of forced it into a circle, and then it popped up 3-D style. And I was so relieved.

Please tell me it all means nothing. Or at least something good.

Alright then, if you won't I'd best go off to sleep now. Busy few days coming up. If I can FIND my sidekick, I'll take it to Tennessee and blog on HipTop Nation. Problem is, I haven't been able to find it for 24 hours... and I'm getting a little nervous.

I think I'm getting a little less good at handling stress every day. I lose something new every day.

In other and more important news, THANK YOU to the folks who have contributed to my laptop fund. Marek's and my ciphering has the number round/bout $550 (including my little contribution), and I can't BELIEVE the generosity of you ladies and gents. Slowly but surely. I've started nosing around. Looks like you can get some used Dells on ebay for that. But I think I'll hang on a little longer to see if I can get into Powerbook territory.

I can't blog from the blogger window--using this GREAT TEXT PAD application instead. I've lost about six good posts by blogging in the blogger window because the backspace key over here is hooked up to some groovy feature that, whenever it deems proper, turns into a BACK button on the browser, after which jump all your text gone. Hopping forward again reveals blank window. You lose, try again.

But Hey, I'm here and I'm grateful and I'm blogging, and I now have a new text editor to love in TextPad.

okay, sleeeeep well. and thank you again and again and again.

A list of contributors and proper thank yous coming probably sunday when this insane week ends.

mailbox mailbox what might you have?

Before I left my job, I often ignored the mailbox for three or four days at a time. George is an eager mail getter. When he's in town, the mail comes upstairs before noon each day. I always hate to see it. More bills that will sit on the piano. More junk. More news I don't want to hear, know, see, or think about.

Those were the days of direct deposit, when the mail offered me nothing but hassles. Let me tell you, when those days end, you learn to love your mailbox again. Not the bills or junk mail, but CHECKS! Waiting for two checks for my first consulting work. Anxiously. Now I eye the mail box from the living room. Make sure it's still standing. Wshew. Mail lady has to have someplace to put my checks. Hurry mail lady, hurry!

When I was a kid I wanted mail so badly, I joined every free horse association around--paints, quarterhorses, thoroughbreds, paliminos, standard breds, tennessee walkers, shetland ponies, you name it. And every day I'd run to the mail box to see what would come. Every day was an absolute score in kid's terms. I got quarterhorse stickers, post cards on paints, catalogues, newsletters. It helped a lonely kid feel connected, you know.

Now blogging is like that childhood mail box, filled with mail and words from far away and around the corner.

And my REAL mailbox sits on a post out by the road, waiting. waiting. waiting for those checks.

Macro Horrors Redux.

Holy high crimes!

And bloody masacres!

Thank you to Alex and Benjy for the information.

I think.

With 30,000 or more troops done dismantling Iraq, could we do one thing--go in and rescue the children who are suffering? How many parents are dead? Families gone? We Sessums could take care of a couple, heck even a Korean lot of three maybe. We have to get a family health insurance policy anyway.

During the last Middle East chaos, I looked around to see how adoptions worked over there. I don't know if anyone has found anything different, but my research found that Muslim countries don't allow adoptions 1) outside the country or 2) outside of the religion. I'm sure Korea has similar rules. The Congo? I'm not sure. There has to be a way to save the children from the insanity of adults.

Makes me cringe.

enough government

Politics make me sick. I don't like writing about this shit.

It's okay, jeneane, you're allowed to write what you feel about this stuff.

No. It's pointless. These are global events. We have no power over these events. These are the petty things man (and woman) will do to keep from focusing on what is real, what is beautiful, what is ugly in themselves. The aggressor is inside, not out. Understand that and you understand one another. Fucking likely. Not.

Yes, but it's important if you're against the war to say so.

I'm not against the war. I'm against inhumanity. When there's war there's inhumanity on both sides.

Well, it's good to write about these things then--clean out your system.

Yes, it felt good to empty my bowels all over world politics.

Syria, we gon' mess you up.

I can't stand to hear these goobers talk anymore. Now we're going to start with Syria and Iraq. I'm not surprised. Big ole United States of Bubba says, "Let Iraq be a lesson to you, and you, and you" to every other idiot government on the planet. Great.

Let's show these countries how they too can enjoy the American way of liberty and prosperity. (cough). Is there any way for the ancestors of slavery to go back and charge the U.S. government with war crimes? No, not restitution. War crimes. Not money. Jail time. Or worse.

Hey, all you bros on death row, look at Saddam's jail cells. How do they look to you? What? Funky?

Ain't it funky now.

Now that the blood is drying over in Iraq, could the World White Gestapo turn their attention to their own falling-apart-economy for, like, just five minutes? That's all--five minutes maybe?

I should stop reading Oliver Willis. He gets me all crazy 'bout this stuff.

Stupid Brand Moves (SBMs) - Number 1

Time, Inc. has quietly decided to yank its online offerings, making websites for its numerous publications unavilable to anyone except AOL users, subscribers, and purchasers of single issues who will be given a special code that will get them onto the publication's site.

How stupid.

Evidence:

John Squires, Time Inc.'s executive vice president overseeing the transition, paints the move in opportunistic terms for the magazine giant. "Our hope is to put ourselves in a position where we get paid for [online] content in the future," either through increased magazine sales, or distribution via AOL or other online sites. (Neither unit knows how many of AOL's 35 million members subscribe to any of the 14 magazines going behind the wall.)

How backward. There are already at least a quarter million weblogs ultimately more interesting than Time's mainstream pubs, which include People and Entertainment Weekly.

What's more, what if journalists who write for these publications already blog or decide to blog? Does Time have a hissy fit because suddenly the value of their cherished content is diluted?

ish.

Teen People will begin restricting access today. SI for Kids, Real Simple and In Style follow on April 21; Sunset on April 22; Time for Kids, Coastal Living, Cooking Light and Southern Accents on April 29; Southern Living on May 7; and Parenting on May 20. A date for Health is not yet set.

No one is batting an eye at the move, which in my mind will narrow the audience for Time's publications down to AOL users almost exclusively. Others--like, normal people--will get pissed off when they find these sites restricted and go elsewhere. People will still sell at grocery checkouts, but I doubt many will bother to logon with their single-use code.

"It's not a very high-risk decision for the magazines," said David Card, an analyst with Jupiter Media Metrix. "AOL drives a lot of EW.com's traffic already. Whenever AOL does an aggressive move with a Time Inc. property, the traffic increases pretty dramatically."

Did he just say that this was an "aggressive" move? OYE! The only thing less aggressive would be if the AOL users wrote the magazines themselves, wrote strictly about AOL, and only shared them only inside the AOL cult. Wait, I think that would be more innovative.

BTW, Traffic is another word for eyeballs. And eyeballs don't stare at you just for yucks over the long haul.

With all of its publications and vast online reach, Time is in the position to do something innovative, to reach across venues and audiences, to draw from and contribute to the conversations taking place online through blogs and other sites. Instead, they're doing the opposite, tucking their content inside the AOL vest.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

11:04 Thought

Even the kitten doesn't know what to make of the mess that is our living room. In tossing bills I meant to pay and junk mail I never meant to read into a widening pile on the floor, suddenly the whole living room is covered in a paper carpet. The kitten is sitting in the middle of the heap, looking this way and that, wondering I'm not sure what. Maybe 1) has she lost her mind? 2) what do humans do with all this paper? 3) I wonder how it would feel to take a dump on this stuff?

10:11 Thought

Bloggers who take their knowledge of blogging into the company for which they work, because that company has expressed interest in how to participate in the "blogging thing," should gather together the interested colleagues in a meeting, and at that meeting, bloggers should ask representatives of the company to sign a non-disclosure agreement before saying anything. Maybe even a non-compete. This is *our* venture. We should at least be able to scare them a little. Get some due pleasure out of it all.

steer it up

Tom's been over on Stir doing all this cool shit, and I'm sitting here like some lame team blog wannabe who starts these things and then skips off to beg for a new laptop on her own and adjacent blogs.

Sometimes I'm so goofy I bother myself.

Read Tom on stir - eees good!

Dear UPS

Next time save the money and hire me to breathe new life into your brand. A poofy logo and new identity rollout ain't gonna cut it.



Benjy's got the scoop.

Note: "The entire changeover should be completed by 2009."

2009???????!

Chriminy, they ought to be able to send packages to the moon by 2009!

I second what Benjy says.

tax basket

Phone ringing off the hook today. Incoming work is looking up. Time will tell.

In the mean time, the bean is on spring break--anyone else trying to work from home this week with their kiddies running about? It reminds me of her first four years, from which we still haven't recovered. How on earth did I do that? How? The things that seem real when you're in the middle of them often don't seem real at all later on.

Who else still hasn't done taxes? Anyone? Oh goodness. It's such a process here with George's business. Can't imagine next year--write off city with two sole proprietors in the joint.

We have a little routine around taxes we've been using for years. We have a BIG basket in the closet. All year long we stuff write-off receipts and documents in it. From toll receipts to dry cleaning receipts to equipment, gear rental, plane tickets, books, movies (yes, I was analyzing the soundtrack), you name it.

I don't look at the stuff all year. January through January is simply "stuff it in the basket" mode. Then in January, I pour the magnificent records of the year into a big huge garbage bag and set the bag on the rocking chair in the bedroom. The basket is empty and we start again.

I leave the bag on the chair until sometime in April. Usually right about the second week. I'm not sure what I think happens in that garbage bag between January and April. I guess I figure things will sort themselves out if I just glance at it once in a while.

George looks at it to, but doesn't know what to do with it. He puts his receipts in the basket all year. He strong-arms our accountant. He negotiates. But I do the cipherin'. Ugh.

That damn bag is still upstaris waiting for me. I guess I better go touch it or something. Psych myself up. Kick it into gear.

Or maybe I'll go read a few blogs instead....

But what if we LIKE feeling this way?

In the realm of the unconscious, as psychoanalysts say, space and time are abolished: the same occurs while we use the computers surfing Internet the brain is confused, the stimuli from the senses carry opposite sensations, it experiences different lives at the same time, lives separated by nanoseconds: too much for the brain, which is used to this during sleep, during dreams, during mind wanderings, but is uncapable to deal with this in the "real life": the result is a dissociative state, that is a partial loss of a united state of conscience, with "vertical" fractures among the different "lives".

One man's vertical fractures are another man's small pieces loosely joined?

Learning how to be pleasantly surprised

Me overwhelmed.

By the generosity of the many who have donated to my laptop fund. More to come on the whos and the thank yous as Marek does his tremendous volunteer job of tracking the laptop drive. My family and I are completely blown away by the kindness of the people who live in here/out here.

I've already catastrophized ahead, thinking of all the ways I could let everyone down: what if I get a new laptop and I can't write anymore, or what if I lose my mind and am committed and can't keep blogging, or what if I get a serious illness and don't have the energy to keep on, or what if we can't pull this two-independent-business-people household off and have to get an all consuming (read non-telecommuting) day job, and what if... what if... many worse things I'd be embarrassed to tell you.

I have fought my whole life to never be surprised. It is my biggest weapon of self defense--that hyper-anticipation of the pessimistic variety--just to protect myself from the ultimate surprise of loss. The one that knocks my knees out from under me every time.

My friend plans a surprise visit--or worse yet throw me a surprise birthday party--and rather than be delighted, I'm mostly in shock. I have no sense of balance, no frame of reference, as to how to handle delightful surprises.

It is obvious where this comes from. This is one I figured out a long time ago.

Recognition is another double-edge sword. It leaves me feeling somehow undeserving, and I'm just beginning to sort through that. How have I managed to be a behind-the-scenes star my entire life, and what might be different if I had dared--if I had been able to--step out front. Hit the spotlight.

Blogging has given me a taste of what that might be like. People know a lot about me AND they still like my work. Some even like me. I don't stammer here or look for the right words; they just come. And if I don't get it right, I don't melt down.

Where am I going with this? I'm not sure. Sharing bits of neuroticism and the trauma that nurtured them, here and there as I go, as I figure it out.

I think that wounded people come here, to the blogspace, to work these things out in an environment that is safer than most. What makes it safer than most is that other wounded people are here reading what you say. Because if they weren't hurting, they'd be bored by now. For me at least, I am compelled to hang with you, to give in to that overwhelming urge that keeps us connecting here, keeps us reading and writing eachother healthy.

David Weinberger wrote that we are writing ourselves into existance. I don't think he thought of childhood trauma and the loss of self when he wrote that. But it has profound meaning if you view blogging through the lens of "self."

Unemployment Office and more

This was my first trip ever to the unemployment office. I expected it to be much like the tag office (motor vehicles, for those who don't reside in Georgia), but I was happily surprised. Efficient. Friendly. Understanding. Not unclean. Lots of computers. Lots of useless handouts and flyers. No real jobs per-se. But plenty of forms to fill out.

Still, depressing overall. Something empty in the eyes of those of us once-valuable employees filling out forms, sitting, waiting for our turn in "big room A," where we got more paperwork and instructions for using the web site.

My biggest question was, if you work one week and make a lot of money, but then you don't work for two weeks, can you collect for those two weeks.

The answer was yes.

Well, that's good news.

The maximum here in Georgia is $295 a week. Imagine that. The lady told me, "Doesn't matter if you made $26,000 a year or $1 million a year--the most you get is $295 a week." I said, "That's tragic." She said, "Yes it is, isn't it."

I don't have any qualms about collecting for the weeks when no work comes in. At our house, $295 will buy groceries and gas and pay for Pre-K. Nothing to sneeze at. I worked for it for the last 20 years. I'll take it.

When I left unemployment, I got 2 for 1 Chick-fil-A sandwiches for dinner. The woman at the drive through asked me if I wanted to donate a dollar to Big Brothers Big Sisters. I said, "No, I'm sorry. I just lost my job."

Don't ask me why. I should have given the dollar. If I could afford to stop for Chick-fil-a, even 2 for 1, I could have offered up the dollar. I think I'll go back and give it to her next week. She was sweet, college age, and told me, "I'm so sorry to hear that about your job--we're hiring managers here you know." I asked her how the benefits were. She said great--you get them after 60 days. "I get to go to school free," she told me.

I told her I thought that was just "awesome" and that I really appreciated how friendly and courteous she was. I told her I might be back to take her up on the manager job. You never know.

That's where Jenna wants me to work, you know. When I told her I wasn't going to be working at the tall building in midtown anymore, she said, "OH! Maybe you can work at Chick-fil-a like Jackeline's mom!"

Kids.

Kids?

Why am I so tired?

OH, I took Jenna to the dentist today and her two bottom teeth are starting to loosen up. She is so proud. She wants to lose those teeth so badly. I thought she'd burst when the dentist told her they were actually loose. She sat bolt upright in the chair, looked at me, and shivered. She does that when she gets really excited.

I do it too lately. Not for the same reasons.

As I write this, Jenna just woke up with growing pains. She's standing on the steps crying.

And it's 2:30 a.m.

No sleep for the weary.

Papa's tending to her, saying, "It's okay, boodle," and carrying her upstairs.

I'm gonna go look for the motrin.

night all.

Marek Takes Up My Cause

I didn't ask for it, but I'm also not going to turn it away. Not now. No way. Spent time in the unemployment office today. I gotta make this work, at least give it a frigging try.

Marek has started a campaign to get me back on my beloved Dell, or maybe cheat on Dell and get a Mac. Time will tell.

This lovely Compaq on which I currently blog, and its donor, are the most wonderful addition to my arsenel against corporate-layoffedness I could hope for. But, in real terms, this Compaq-to-the-rescue has 64 megs of RAM and a 3 gig hard drive, and I've already about filled that up with old files.

Don't get me wrong. I'm having fun here. It's working. But I'm craving for more power, fewer hangs, and a bit more storage. In short, I'm already taxing this here notebook in a big way. Man, am I selfish or what? Okay. I'll own that. But I have to hurry or I'll have to get another office gig. Can't look in that direction yet. Just can't. Not yet.

So bring it on if you so choose. No offense taken if you can't or choose not. But many many thank yous for those who do.

Will keep you posted.

george nails this one

tragically funny.

NeoCon: valid or not?

Shelley said something that surprised me in a series of engaging comments which I happened upon after reading this post by Jonathon Delacour refuting a reader's allegations that Jonathon is, among other things, racist. The response by Jonathon is terrific. The comments that follow also worth the read. But I was surprised that Shelley proposed within those comments that we get rid of the term "NeoCon" or neo-conservative in discussing the current state of things.

I'm not sure we can--that is what they call themselves.

In my mind, neo-conservatve it is an important distinguishing term relating to exactly what is going on in this administration, and uniquely this administration. They named themselves, those who brought George Bush to power. They were neo-cons before he took office and had already groomed him as their man. Or, well, trusted his father enough to know his son could do the job.

This news comes to you from a rather apolitical blogger. Take it with a grain of truth, I mean salt. Or sand. Desert sand.

The difference between conservativism and neo-conservatism is the difference between folks who want what they would call "fiscal responsibility" and hands off, government compared to the folks who's goal it is to take christianity (I use the little "C" because it is their version of Christianity, which is intertwined conveniently with liberty) to "every human being in the world" as they rescue the Holy Land. To serve as a catalyst to fulfill Bible prophesy. (And maybe to get something besides a get-out-of-purgatory-free card along the way).

Neo-conservatives, who are currently in charge of this country, are Crusaders, a name bestowed on them by the devilish members of the axis of evil. I would imagine, in some ways, NeoCons are proud of the term Crusaders. Just wait until the pictures of Iraqis being baptized in the open desert by American troops start floating back. They will.

And if Team NeoCon gets a little oil, some government contracts, and manages to free a few countries from horrific regimes in the mean time, all the better.



over and out...

blogging from unemployment

Wow, who knew they had super fast computers with nice Dell trinitron monitors at the unemployment office? It's not too bad here. Never been inside one in my life. Figured I'd better check it out, just in case. I have no idea --- ooops, they called my name. BYE!

Jeneane: The Lost Episodes

What I remember of the day after is nothing.

When you have a gap in memory related to a traumatic event in your life, it isn't so much a gap or a chasm; it's not really the "lack of" because, well, you wouldn't know something was missing if it were just missing. It's something else. It's rather a mountain, seen through dense fog, that has the power to trip you up if you even think about scaling it.

The last memory I have of my father's death is late in the afternoon, or maybe it was early the next day, when I asked if I could go out and play.

My mother thought it best for me to stay inside. I remember asking why, and I remember her saying that we were in mourning. Although at that time, I think I heard it as morning. And I remember thinking morning was an odd thing to say, probably because, either, it was afternoon, or it was indeed morning, which, regardless of the earliness or lateness of the hour, would puzzle a five year old who just wanted to go outside.

[[Oh. synapses connected. This happens when I blog. It's why I think blogging is the best new therapy tool going. I wrote above that all I wanted to do was go outside, but I wasn't allowed to. I think of my telecommuting self saying somewhere on this blog that if Web Van still ran, I'd never have a reason to leave the house again, and I think of the times I've stayed inside so long I've wondered if it borders on agoraphobia...]]

Where was I?

Yes, the memory loss/lapse/gap/mountain...

That is where it ends for me.

I don't remember a word that passed between my older brother and I, or my older sister and I, about my father's death that day, that week, that month, that year, or for many years following.

I don't remember a word that passed between my mother and I about my father's death after that morning/mourning for many years following--until the day of her marriage to my step father in fact, when I told her I missed my daddy. I was 12. She told me she did too. And she held me.

I don't remember anything in between, except a couple of out-of-time, out-of-sequence mind videos: me riding the bus pretending to be sad because it got me attention. Me pretending to be sad in front of my favorite teacher so she'd dote on me. It worked. Me wondering why I wasn't sad, just accepting it, understanding at my young age that some things just are.

What were the first words my brother and sister said to me? Where was I? Why didn't I know what my father died from until I was in my late teens? My aunt penny was the person I saw openly grieve. The only one. Maybe that's why we're so close. Maybe she grieved for me.

I know the trip to Illinois is in there somewhere, where my innocence took another, even bigger, hit. I know they tried to protect me from the sadness of the funeral, of the aftermath.

I remember moving before first grade--selling the farm to the Forresters so they could grow mushrooms in the big red barn.

But I don't remember what I felt. I don't remember IF I felt. I wish now that I had been able to feel it then. I'm not sure you can--or that you even need to--at five. It's just not the same when you're that young. Your default is powerlessness. You have no say, no control at that age. When your father dies, you put the catastrophe into the "oh no. okay" basket, where everything that isn't yours to touch goes, and you go outside and play. Or at least you want to.

Because you can't if you're in mourning or if it's morning.

You can't look back and compare then and now 35 years later. That is the frustrating part. And you can't construct the lapses in memory with any accuracy unless you dare to ask for corroboration, validation, from those older than you at the time.

I have never, not to this day, asked my sister or my brother about my father's funeral. I have never asked them if they went. I never asked what they were told, how much they knew before it happened, if they knew he was dying and what that felt like, or what they said to me afterward. Did they come home from school that day? I don't remember.

Where did we all go?

I'm not sure we can say anything now.

I wish I could reconstruct those memories so that I never had to ask them. It's hard for them to talk about. Obviously. It was always hard for us to talk about him. Even now, the word Dad, in reference to my father, doesn't slip off the tongue when I'm talking to my brother or my sister. "That was before Dhhaad died, right?" I stumble. I pause because I want to say, "your dad." I mean, they had him a long time. My sister was 14 when he died. My brother 12. He was their father.

Me? He was still a piece of me. Or I him. I was that young.

I was still being born.

I look at my daughter, now the age I was then.

There are days when it all comes rushing back in surreal mini video clips--all except those pieces that ended up on the cutting room floor. Probably the pieces I need to see the most.

the family dollar

Writing from that place of exhaustion tonight. Jenna is upstairs in her room singing away... we're trying a new thing, you see. Go up to your room and play at 8:30; when we say lights out, turn the lights out and go to sleep. Sounds good. Not quite working. It's almost 10 and she's singing and clapping to made-up songs. Putting puzzles together, finding pink bunny, "I found her! I found her! I thought she was lost forever!" and generally getting more worked up as the minutes tick by.

And I love her so.

I stopped at the Family Dollar today--there's a new one over by the Ingles. Silly name, the family dollar. These days it takes on new meaning. But this particular store is better than Big Lots. Bigger than Dollar General. Like a dollar store on steroids.

No air on, hitting 80 already, we the women of the family dollar looked at one another, passing silent sentences that ask, "This damn hot already!?"

The lady at the cash register says, "I think we're in for a hot summer."

The woman in front of me has long black hair, touching her waist, a black pants suit tells me she's come from work. Pulling snacks and toilet paper and make-up from her cart, my eye comes to rest on her son, who is hanging on and off the cart, repeating phrases over and over in a manner that tells me something is not quite right. A handsome boy, probably 10 or 11, over and over he repeats sentences that start and end with "Mama."

The cadence goes like this, "Mama? xxxxxxxx, Mama."

Often the same sentence, the same cadence. Over and over.

She doesn't acknowledge him, just keeps lifting family dollar specials onto the counter. I wonder how many times she has heard these words before.

I think of Jenna. I think of my life. I think of hers. I think of how fast things can change. I start to feel every instance of every trauma of the myriad of people suffering wash up on the rocky beach that is my heart.

I push her saran wrap a little to the left, put my paper towels in its place.

that round of gratuitous profanity was brought to you by...

stress!

Okay, glad I got that last post off my chest. It has been weighted down the last two weeks with the business of business, unwinding and disconnecting from my former employer, synapse by synapse. Along the way some rage is freed. Look, see, that's what that last post was about. It comes in waves. Relief, anger, relief, anger. Hope, panic, hope, panic. Mania, depression, mania, depression. Profane, sacred, profane, sacred.

See? I knew you'd understand.

Now I leave you with with part of what I left them with today:

I leave you with some words, because that’s what I have and that’s what I do. Take them for what they’re worth. Here goes:

Something big is happening in business right now, and it is as exciting as it is unsettling. Don’t be worried. When top-down strategies and practices are challenged, it’s a good thing, not a bad one. It’s a beginning, not an end.

Human beings are connecting in new ways via the Internet. Some of you may think the progress of commerce and innovation online died with the dot-coms. Not so.

We are creating and innovating globally via the Internet in ways that are just beginning to stagger MBAs and stump corporations. There are tremendous opportunities for businesses here—but not for business as usual. You’ll see what I mean within a year.

Hang on to your families and loved ones—don’t sacrifice a moment’s time with them.

Flip “passion and precision in communication” around. Work as hard as you can to communicate authentically with markets on behalf of your clients, and with your clients and their customers too. Be genuine and human, don’t be a business or a firm.

Precision is no longer measured by the standards we’ve become accustomed to. Instead, try things that are off and iffy and not always likely to work. They will begin to work, surprise you, and delight your clients. You need your brain in high gear for this one, though. Passion, by the way, should be inherent.

Be honest and real with your customers and theirs—there is no other option. Spin is dead. I kid you not.

Don’t target, talk.

Don’t segment, listen.

Conversation can solve anything.

maybe, huh?

"Get a Bigger Dick Today!"

I'm happy to report that my spam has followed me to my new laptop--what great news!

In other news, I am FREEEEEE from the confines of the corporate agenda. Or laid off. Depends on how you look at it.

Breathe, 2, 3, 4.

This is a quick post to say I lived through it--said goodbye to Della in the HR person's office. Sad. Forgot to bring the CD Drive (it's the swapable type). Promised to mail it.

The Schwans man came and filled our freezer with food on a post-dated check. Hoping funds arrive to cover it. Ah well, it's all good. Today we eat, for tomorrow we may...

Getting used to what my words look like on this Presario screen. Have to meld. Melding not complete yet. Bear with me.

Fingers like it though.

Off to read some blogs. Suppose I'll have some free time to do just that for the near future.

FUCK. SHIT. Motherfucking hot wind blowing down I-75 on the way home, AC cranked, what the hell, it's only April. Listening to neo-cons on talk radio just to remind myself. See the double-axle Ford pickup with the six foot pole off the trailer hitch and the 6' x 4' American Flag hanging down, licking my hood? Redneck motherfucker looked just like DICK Cheney behind the wheel. On the phone with RB, I say, you should see this flag--it's the Perkins flag on the back of a pickup. Only in the souuuuth.

Then a Chevy Suburban assaults me at the light. Tinted windows--you know those LONG windows on the suburban that run the whole length of the back? Making fine use of all this real estate, this patrioticidiot has etched the following in soap-or-something on both sides of the suburban and the tailgate: We are at war. If you don't support our troops then you go to HELL! [Hell is underlined for emphasis. Good thing. Otherwise I wouldn't have taken him seriously.]

I take a look at the guy and his wife. DAMN It's another Dick Cheney body double. Invasion of the body snatchers goes red white and blue.

I'm outta here ... later!

anyone in blog space who has ever emailed me...

Please do so again sometime soon--my inbox and contacts haven't made it over here. Most of you know, I'm ewriter at bellsouth.net. Look forward to hearing from you as I get used to my new digs.

still standin'

holy cow. I made it. I crawled through USB ports today, wound in and around two keyboards, C, D, E, F, and I think a G drive on not one but two machines, got most of my personal files safely offloaded, not all to this sweet Presario which Mr. Rage bestowed upon me, but on george's dinosaur most are safe. Some made it over here before I screwed up and paid Macafee $34 for their piece of shit virus program, which seems to have done some messy things to this hardly-used notebook. So tomorrow I'll figure it out.

Tonight, just now actually, I finished moving files and did the take down of the Dell. She's packed away in my backpack with her power cable. Cell phone's next, as soon as I can find it, together with my little packet o-paperwork for HR and a W9 to fax (from old job to new client) while I'm at "work" tomorrow. Guess I can't really call it work. Guess I'll call it TOAST!

Thought I'd better post lest you all thought I fell into the motherboard, failing to individuate became one with it, melted into the circuitry or something. Sounds good, actually.

This keyboard is really nice. It's got that rolling push-back feel to it. You kind of glide. No clickty-clack. I don't feel like I'm doing anything except talking with my hands, which I do anyway.

Tired. That's one thing. Luckily I bought myself a day to get this all sorted out. So tomorrow I take my last drive in. Not much to be nostalgic about considering I drove in maybe five times this year. Still. Five years worth of drives--add them all up and it's something that merrits a sigh.

I'll be glad to get it done, glad to get back here and post from the other side. So many things to learn, not the least of which is where unemployment's located.

Unemployment--such an icky word. They should call it pre-enjoyed employment, something. Un.

Did pretty well last week with new clients. I tagged teamed with George on some tech writing and handled the PR/Marcomm side of another client. Cool.

So much to do, I'm overwhelmed. I guess tomorrow will bring me one less thing to do.

The end
The beginning

tomorrow.

P.S. Happy 5 Year Anniversary, Jeneane! Thank you for your tremendous contributions!

Gee, I couldn't think of a better way to spend it. ;-)

Relief...

Laptop on its way from Boulder to the ATL. The relief I feel is palpable. This must be worth a good round of bronchitis, feeling my defenses fall, any number of bugs from today's pediatrician visit at the ready.

Something about going into work tomorrow to hand back my baby--and yes, I have to--then to walk away knowing I didn't have a computer to start this new venture of mine with had me feeling that familiar defeated-before-I-start thing. Something about Dell's non-response put me in "my place." But now I can walk awa feeling pretty darn good. Someone I met through my writing a year ago thinks I just might make a go of it and is willing to put his laptop where his mouth is. That's pretty fucking cool, to say the least. And he's not just any someone. He's for real. But then, most of you know that. Suffice it to say, it's more than any corporation has bet on me. Ever.

So we'll see. In the mean time, the ethernet card he added before shipping it off will hopefully work fine with my DSL, and if all goes accordingly, I'll catch you all on my new puter later.

Best news of all, Jenna's doctor's appointment went very well. No strep, no mono. Bloodwork good. The doc thinks that the winter's two rounds of strep and constant virus lashings took it's toll on her, but that she's coming round. Thankful is what I am.

What an amazing day. I hardly know what to do with it. So I think I better go to bed before anything bad can happen. Three hours to go before tomorrow. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Through all of these last few days, I've managed to continue *not* writing about the war, which is a good thing I think. There are many who do it better and more passionately, from both pro and anti sides, than I can. It's not that I don't care, it's that it's too big. It's like watching a re-run of a re-run of a re-run and you know the ending five times over, and yet you can't change it. It's somehow outside of real time. You have no power to stick your hand in there and modify what's written, what's spoken, who lives, or who dies. Powerlessness.

So, I leave it to the experts and those people who truly believe their invovement matters in the course of these global events. I am glad they do. I wish I did.

If someone asks me how I would stop the conflict or how I would win the war, I would have the same answer: Coliseum War. That's right. Take the professionals--the leaders of the countries involved and the highly-skilled fighters within their ranks, put them in a coliseum, and let them fight it out to the end. Maybe it's like the World Series and they have a battle or two in each home country's venue. But contain it. Keep it out of the streets. Keep it out of the houses. Away from the children. Let leaders lead the charge. Let fighters fight. Webcast it or do pay-per-view. However you like.

That's about the only idea I have.

It's morning now and I forgot to post this.

Thank you all, and especially love to Monica for yet another rough time life has tossed her way. She's still standin'. Hang in, you.