It will get done or not get done...

My day to day life is rather mundane. Today for instance the most exciting thing that happened was that I got to be part of an hour long staff meeting via phone. It was not fun. However, I did make it to level 3 of Mah Jong Solitaire. (Which isn't saying much seeing as there are like a million levels) I'm sitting here now, at 8:30 with nothing much to do but type in my blog.
Here's the quote from my stupid quotes of the day calendar:
"There's no doubt it will get done ornot get done before the season starts." That was said by New York Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman. Don't ask me if he's still the manager because I really do not follow baseball that closely. Even though this made it in the stupid quotes calendar, I kind of use it as a mantra. Those things we think have to get done each day will either get done or not get done. Either way the day will move forward, night will come and things will start again the next day when we can either do the things we didn't get done, or not do them. Like so many of my blogs, it all comes back to choice.
We all have a choice to be organized or not; to procrastinate or not; to be miserable at a job or not (I for one love my job but get frustrated like everyone else.) We have a choice to get married or not; to get an education or not and even whether or not to get out of bed. It'll get done or it won't get done. I for one choose to work to meet the goal I set for myself each day, and sometimes beyond that. I choose to make dinner most nights and I choose to exercise most days. I choose to eat Oreos on occasion and even buy Baby Ruths from time to time. I choose to smoke only once in a blue moon and choose to drink...well, when it's 5 o'clock somewhere.
And somedays, when I am just brain-dead and can't work anymore, can't cook anymore, can't even think about exercise, I just remember, ". . . it will get done or it won't get done . . . " either way, life will move on and the world will not crumble.

Sundays

I love Sundays. Sundays to me are filled with memories of Sunday school, big hearty breakfasts, and laziness. Sundays are a time for rambling drives to nowhere, watching movies you've seen fifteen times, and meeting the family around a big dining room table. Sundays are for church, and fellowship, and learning. Sundays are for naps in the sunshine, freshly folded laundry, crisp bacon frying on the stove. Sundays are days to relax and enjoy what's around you, to plan for tomorrow--but not too much. To enjoy today and bask in the nothingness.

Finding Balance

Normally I only find myself here, writing, when things are bad, or when I'm depressed or being melodramatic. I have been depressed this week, so I haven't written. Things have been going pretty well. The reason? I found balance.

I used to be a laidback person. Even at work I was a flexible-go-with-the-flow kind of girl. I didn't get rattled easily and I got along with everyone...both at work and at home. Recently I've been different. I get ticked off at the smallest request from my editor, and my husband can drive me insane just by saying, "Why don't you try rebooting your computer?" (This is because he knows absolutely nothing about computers yet still tries to gives advice.)

I think part of the reason for this change is the way I spend my days. I work at my desk all day and rarely leave the house. I go out for groceries once a week, and maybe to run errands one or two other days. I don't have many people to hang out with around here, except my husband, so I spend a lot of time alone. If I'm not alone, I'm with the husband. Spending that much time, just the two of us, can suddenly make even the most mundane comments annoying.

This past weekend, however, we got away. We drove to the mountains, to this cabin in the snow...and drank ourselves silly with some friends--real people! Though it took me awhile to return to the land of the living on Sunday, it was worth it just to have time with other people...to get away from our apartment and to be a "couple."

This week I have tried to get back to my laid back personality. I liked that person. I don't like the person I find myself becoming...if my editor asks me to find out for her what happened in the constellation Cassiopeia in 1572, I'm just gonna do it and not complain to everyone around me. If my husband gets home at 10:00 tonight because he left work late and had to drive 2 hours, I'm not gonna complain.

I'm gonna stay balanced. I"m going to exercise, talk to some friends, remember to look outside once in a while...and find myself again.

What the...

Have you ever just had one of those days where you thought, "This cannot be my life." I hate days where crap just seems to pile up all around you until you absolutely think you will lose your mind. That's what my day has been like so far. And I'm sure, were I to elaborate, most people would find the things I've dealt with this morning petty. But hey, they're driving me nuts, and that's all I'm concerned with at the moment. I have gotten nothing accomplished work-wise. I sit here, typing away about the stuff that's ticking me off, and it's not making the stuff any better. No, the stuff is still there. IT"S STILL THERE.

Music, Music, Music

I've just remembered why I don't listen to the radio during my workday very often. I tend to get melancholic. My humors get out of sort and my liver takes control or...something Elizabethan like that. Music is so powerful. Lyrics and words which somehow seem to project every feeling we've ever had into a melodious, haunting story...so far today I've been energetic, wistful, sexy, nostalgic, and even flat-out depressed because of songs I've heard...and right now I find myself pulling out a few 80s dance moves as I sit at my desk procrastinating about my next work project...

Music truly does feed our souls. It helps us to let out frustrations, express our sensuality, and show others what we're really feeling without us ever having to say anything. Here are a few of my favorites for expressing my true feelings about myself and random other things...

Train's "Drop's of Jupiter"
Tori Amos' "Mother" and "Crucify"
any song by Eminem
Eric Clapton's "Old Love"
Tom Petty's "American Girl"
Bob Seger's "Night Moves," "Still the Same," "Main Street," "We've Got Tonight," and "Against the Wind,"
Nickelback's "Photograph"
Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," "The Times They are a Changin'"
and for some reason, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by the Beatles

Now clearly this is an incomplete list. THere are many, many more songs which make me happy, sad, thoughtful, etc, etc. This is just the beginning. What songs make you yearn for something?

Why things happen

Things happen for a reason. Okay, not little things like losing your car keys, but big things. Those major events in our lives occur for a reason. When I was oh, 15 I think, I had my heart seriously broken. This did not happen to me often. I always broke up with guys. They didn't break up with me. I'm not being arrogant by saying that, it's just the way things happened. And to think, when I did get dumped, it wasn't by the football quarterback or the class president. It was by a guy who, to be honest, wasn't that popular at all. But he was mine. He was different. He didn't want to have sex, he didn't want to spend all our time making out, he wanted to talk, to write me poetry, to listen. So anyway, things end. It was nasty and mostly because of things that, as adults, would never bother us, but as teenagers held down by the thumbs of our parents, were significant.

So that happened for a reason. Everything does. You can't explain it and you can't always understand it at the time, and sometimes you think to yourself there cannot be a reason this had to happen...but it's there, somewhere. I have to belive this, you see. Otherwise I might have to face the possibility that I've just made stupid mistakes in my life. I know I have, but I believe there is a power behind those mistakes sometimes. People fall in love, they fall out of love, friends come, friends go...all for a reason.

I have one friend that I've had since the fourth grade. She is my best friend. She knows everything I've ever done, good or bad. I honestly don't think I have a single secret from her. For a while, in college, we drifted apart...we were in different cities, with different lives, but she was always there. At my first wedding, at my second wedding...when I was unsure of everything in my life...she was put here, in my life, for a reason. She's my rock.



(and on a completely different note...)
I keep wondering at the power of coincidence
And if will ever play the role I think of so often
It has been a hindrance and a pest and has
Kept wonder and wishing from being solid
Damn coincidence—if it could work in my favor
Would it be …. Would it?

One can only imagine and think thoughts that one thinks
While staring into nothingness nights
Reading between the lines, hoping what you’re reading is what you’re meant to read
Hoping you see not just what you want to see but what’s real somewhere
In a darkened office in an almost empty building
Where thoughts speak and wants aren’t just wanted
They just are.

Deny yourself the thing you really want

I just ate pasta. Now I know, many many people these days have moved to the "no-carb" lifestyle, but I cannot do it. I enjoy food. I love cheesecake and rice krispy treats and pizza. I love to dine in restaurants--of all kinds. I refuse to see food as the enemy. So, tonight I ate pasta. Now, mind you I didn't eat like an entire box of pasta...not even half a box. But you see, I don't understand how we can be happy if we deny ourselves the things we really want.

If I want chocolate, I buy a three musketeers bar. If I want to sleep until noon...well, some things we just can't have. I have always been aware of my body...I don't have tiny bones or a high metabolism...I have, as far back as high school, always been a size 10. Sometimes I can wear an 8--always in dresses and occasionally in jeans. The only things about my body that I sometimes loathe are my thighs. They're huge. But they're muscular. So I guess it's a half-empty/half-full glass situation.

Getting back to my earlier point, how can we be happy if we deny ourselves the things we really want? I asked myself this years ago and once I had that "thing" not only was I unhappy, but so were many other people...I think a lot of it depends on what that "thing" is. If the "thing" you want is something that is going to eventually screw up your life, or the life of someone else, then you'll probably just have to learn to cope without it. But if what you really want is just one slice of Brooklyn-style pepperoni pizza, then I say take it, eat it, and enjoy every bit of it.

The important rule here, is to not overindulge. No matter what your "thing" is, you can have too much of it...and then, instead of being satisfied, you'll be annoyed and guilty. There is a thin line between having what we want, and gorging ourselves on what we want.

Me? I want...well I don't know what I want right now. I'd like another beer, but I just drank the last Saranac Lager, so I guess that's out of the question. Don't deny yourself what you really want. Take it, savor it, enjoy it.

One must desire something...

Margaret Deland said in a 2002 article in "O" magazine, "One must desire something to be alive." What if what we desire is something forbidden? What if we desire things or people that we can't, or shouldn't have? As a late 20-something, these are the things that, right now, I desire:

1. the ability to smoke without consequences
2. the ability to solve all the world's problems with blink of my eyes and a nod of my head
3. ........ (fill in the blank)
4. the ability to eat whatever and never gain weight
5. the power not to care if I gain weight
6. that one chance to answer all of my "what would happen if..." questions...


So I desire that moment, that one moment in time where I can say, "What would happen if..." and actually know. That's all I want...is to know. But I suppose if we all knew the answer to that ageless question, the future would no longer be the future and no one would ever learn a lesson...we would just do the right thing immediately. Now where would the fun be in that?

What I really desire is so simple really. But so impossible. Stupid life...I cannot sometimes enjoy it for wondering what if...

Dreaming

I dreamed of you last night.
I didn’t plan to. I wasn’t thinking of you
As I drifted off. But I dreamed of you just the same.
I dreamed we were together in some unnatural world—
Doesn’t that just fit? We were never together in a natural world
Even when we were together. I think I just miss what you represent.
I miss comfort. I miss the power you had to make me feel beautiful.
The power to make me feel as though I were perfect even when I was so not.
Now I just seem to exist.
I seem to feel only nothing.