The Real Swing Shady

My second kitty has one eye and two names. She's about five years old, but the vet says she looks twelve. She's one of the sweetest, calmest creatures I've ever known. I named her Aisling, which is Gaelic for "vision" or "beauty." It's a form of Irish poetry, as well as a given name. She's not Irish, of course, and neither am I, so it sounds a little silly. The thing is, she had bad eyes as a result of kitty herpes, and I just thought it fit her, foggy-eyed vision that she is. She was tiny when I brought her home, so she was quickly dubbed Mini, and it stuck with her even as her belly grew round. Since then, the two names have been interchangeable replacements for her SPCA-designated name, Swing Shady. I always thought of her as a little bit of a bad ass with her link to Eminem, but they called her that cause she liked to ride on shoulders (swing) and her eyes were shady.

Long name stories aside, she's led a short, sweet life, and now she's become Skinny Mini, refusing to eat because there is a growth in her belly that's getting in the way of food. I noticed about two weeks ago that she quit eating, and then we found out why when she spent two nights at the animal hospital. The only difference in her behavior before that was spending lots of time cuddling Matthew and me whenever she got the opportunity. The less logical part of my brain feels like she was spending her last healthy moments with us, and it feels like a nice little gift. Since then, she hasn't quite been herself, and I think we will ask the vet to euthanize her tomorrow. I am going to miss her something terrible.

Matt has asked me why I like cats so much, as I've seemingly become the cat lady next door in my early thirties. There are cat candles, and cat sweaters, cat-destroyed furniture and carpet, and four cats living with us (note, that's one over the legal limit). It's difficult to explain, but these guys are some of my best friends, and those don't come often for me. Being a shy introvert is very much like being a cat. We're hard to get to know, but show us some care and attention, and we'll be loyal for a lifetime. Also, we can just hang out together with no need for witty conversation. It's really a win-win kinda friendship.

All that said, there's nothing I can say to express how happy I am to have shared Mini's short life. I'll always remember her little paw raising the roof to greet me when I got home, her wet nose and drool dribble on my face at night, and her silly face shoved in any unattended cup of water. Love you, Mini Moo.

Book Shelves

This is more exciting than anything ever! Not book shelves, but the fact that someone submitted my very first dare for this blog. Thanks to someone named Lisa, for the straightforward dare to write a new post, haha. That makes sense given the lapses in between previous posts. I had this New Year's non-resolution to write at least every Friday, but that hasn't been happening. So, here I am.

My mother-in-law happens to be named Lisa (a.k.a. Lisa-Mom), so I thought perhaps she had stumbled across an old link posted to Facebook, but when I asked if she'd read my blog, she sounded befuddled and told me that she has no idea how to get here. That is for the best, as I've decided that sharing it on Facebook is a little too obviously attention seeking, and also, we don't need Lisa-Mom thinking I am any weirder than she already knows. We like to drink Mexican tequila together and make fun of our husbands. Lisa-Mom is the best.

So back to the topic up there in the subject line. Book shelves. I was thinking about how book shelves have factored into my life over the years, as I shelved my entire meager collection of physical books yesterday on a brand new IKEA shelf acquired from the neighbors, who bought a shelf too large for their space and sold it to me because I am never one to pass up a new opportunity to rearrange my house. I carried all of our books down stairs from where they have been languishing in the guest bedroom where two new, wary cats currently live under the bed. The cats were FREAKED OUT by me running up and down the stairs, rushing in and out with arms-full of torn, water-damaged paperbacks and oversize, out-of-date computer science texts (that's all the husband). It feels as if the books have been in hiding up there in this rarely-used room. It's nice to have them in the land of the living again. I attempted to classify them using Library Thing, but the computer science books were taking far too long, so I decided to save the organization for another day, and instead spent my afternoon arranging books and kick-knacks in an attempt to style the new shelf in designer fashion. It's got a ways to go, but I enjoyed myself.

I've always been a dilettante, and book shelves are no exception to that rule. They have come and gone in my life, playing an important, but minor role, overshadowed by angsty journal entries and the like. But they are more important than many things. I don't remember, but my mom tells a story about how my twin sister and I, as toddlers, decided to climb the book shelves that we grew up with. My sister was certainly the instigator and I the follower, as she was much more daring, even in diapers. I did follow her, though, and thankfully, those shelves didn't tip over on us. I can only imagine how awesome it would feel to someone two or three feet tall to reach the top of a tall bookcase. I don't think we made it that far, though. Those book shelves loomed over all of childhood, full of interesting items from sometime in our parents' history--sea shells and framed photos of them smiling, which was fairly rare in real life. The books were almost an afterthought to me most of the time. Children's encyclopedias did not entertain me one bit, but Johnny Mathis Christmas records did.

Later on, reading was a safety net for me when I became an awkward adolescent who hid out in my room all the time. A Cynthia Voigt book entitled A Solitary Blue kept me company, along with the full gamut of Goosebumps and Fear Street, but I didn't venture much further than that into the world of books. The most important item on my Scholastic order form was always the cheesy animal poster. In middle school, I volunteered a few times in the library, and I enjoyed the solitude between the shelves. That was probably the first spark that would later lead me to become a librarian. At that point, my books were stored in piles on the floor, and they stayed that way for a long time, no book shelves needed.

I didn't rediscover the library again until college when I needed a place of refuge between classes. Again, the shelves and the comfy chairs were a beacon from the loud world outside. I spent hours studying, socializing, and fantasizing about the future, nestled among those shelves. At the same time, I volunteered in the local children's library and realized how much amazing information was available in children's nonfiction. I wished I had spent those childhood days in between shelves instead of staring at the Rosy O'Donnell show, but there isn't any undoing that decision! I'll just have to deal with knowing more about cutie-patooties than architecture or archeology. 

As a result of this college romance with the shelves, tangential though it may have been, I wound up going to library school and spending a few years working as a teen-services librarian. There, shelves meant politics almost as much as they meant opportunity in that each department had to fight for shelf space in the library, and the entire library district had to fight to convince people that those shelves were still meaningful to the community. Before long, I decided that I wasn't passionate enough about arguing that point, so I went about my merry way, and now I am just grappling with how shelves will factor into the future. This new one is a nice addition, though, and I welcome it to tap me on the shoulder and remind me that it matters.

Homeward Bound

I love the sad Simon and Garfunkel song in the title. I love sad or borderline sad works of art about the concept of home in general. Or is it just me thinking they're sad? A wood print in my home's entryway features one of my favorite lines: "home is wherever I'm with you," from the song by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. That quote embodies how I have always felt about the people I love. This morning reminds me, then, that home can never be just one place. Today I watched my twin sister, brother-in-law, and newest baby nephew drive away to start an eighteen hour journey to their new home, and already that place feels a bit like home to me even though I've never been there. I am so happy to watch them embark on an adventure to a place I think they will really enjoy, but of course a little piece of what made Vegas home is making its way out of state along with them.

Laura and I both attempted to avoid tears, but those rebellious little jerks forced their way out (there's a pun in there somewhere). Avoiding displays of emotion is a family custom, but goodbyes are a special exception to the rule. This begs the question, what's wrong with day-to-day emotion? What would happen if we were to cry in front of someone who wasn't about to drive away or board a plane? What would be the next step to exposing our humanity? Since I was small, I had a vision of sitting on an intergalactic orange couch eating cheetos and simply existing with everyone in my family, suspended there in space. I feel fairly certain that the orange couch existed in this fantasy before it became a symbol for SNICK, but I could be wrong. We may have simply been suspended in space, eating Cheetos before the couch entered. Or perhaps the Great Orange Couch is a seldom-referenced archetype--part of the collective conscience. Only Joseph Campbell knows for sure. That simple vision is my idea of heaven, in a way: just to be content with all of humanity instead of always feeling the tug of separation. Of course, I was convinced that a cartoon duck-bill platypus was God around the same age when I came up with this idea, so I may be just a little spiritually whacked out.

I suppose it is good to have a reminder now and again that we feel more deeply than we let on. When Laura left for college, and I stayed in town with over-blown plans to go to school out of state a few weeks later, I remember brushing my teeth without her banging on the bathroom door or doing crazy calisthenics in her bedroom nearby, and crying for the first time over her absence. That experience led to the writing of a bad poem involving the above referenced, "Homeward Bound," that confused a creative writing professor who didn't see how the song related to my sisterly relationship. Looking at the lyrics now, it doesn't, but the ambiance is still there. Since then, each time one of us has relocated, I have felt the same tug of wishing we were bound for the same orange couch. Maybe someday.

The wisdom of the Enneagram and web design for dummies

Here's what my e mail had to say today:

Try this Affirmation today: "I now affirm that I open myself up to people and the world." (Enneagram Transformations, 64)

That's an EnneaThought for the day from the Enneagram Institute. I receive these reminders daily, and I've been meaning to journal privately about them and failing. This one is especially well-suited to public blogging, and my reason for writing, so here goes.

The Enneagram Institute probably sounds a bit strange if you're unfamiliar with it, but it's focused on personality types and personal growth rather than anything creepy or culty. I read The Wisdom of the Enneagram a few months ago, and found it very compelling. The Enneagram is a personality typing system similar to the Meyers-Briggs system: you take a test that provides you with a label and description for your type. The description is eerily accurate, and you feel simultaneously less alone in the world and somewhat surprised that you may not be the unique snowflake your first-grade teacher said you were. That latter part is especially true for my type, which is number four, or the individualist. The long and short of a four is the need to express oneself to the world with an attendant fear of doing so--the drive to be unique and creative with a lack of motivation and a sense of isolation. We convince ourselves that we're too different from the world to be understood, so we hide ourselves away, but we want people to come in and drag us out and be our friends. It sounds a little selfish and exhausting, and it is. 

This blog is one of my attempts to "open myself up to people and the world." The challenges are actually showing it to people and convincing them to read it, as well as avoiding over-sharing because of the false sense of security provided by a blanket of text on a screen. I'm integrating my blog into a personal website built for a class that I fondly refer to as web design for dummies, and I hope to keep working on it and using it after the class ends. To make things a bit more odd, I am amalgamating this fairly personal blog with my resume and portfolio. A recent Forbes article pointed out that having a professional personal website is increasingly important to the quest to build a career. Such sites may well be the resume of the future. Conglomerating personal ramblings and innermost thoughts with one's resume may not be the best route to professionalism, so I will have to consider this moving forward. For now, though, I think it's sort of an interesting endeavor to combine these private and public personas. If you ask Mark Zuckerberg, people of integrity don't need separate public and private personalities. While I am with most of the general public on feeling reluctant to share all of my life's data with the entire web, I also find that idea intriguing, perhaps as a result of my fourness. How would relationships at work change if everyone really knew each other's innermost hopes, fears, and neuroses along with their work ethics and the names of their children and pets?

 

 

At least I tried. . .

Introversion and shyness piled on top of one another are not conducive to fitting in anywhere--especially not my place of work, which happens to have a national reputation for being super wacky and extroverted. I've got the wacky bit down, but it rarely reveals itself in the endearing ways it is supposed to. My team's goal, and my own personal goal is to be more social. Recently, at a workday beer-tasting--yes, that happens--a coworker from another department said, "[Insert my department name] never F*&%^ comes to anything!" Then he backed his way out of the room with an ice chest, all the while sticking out his ass and saying something hysterical that has since slipped my mind. It seemed at the time a revelation--perhaps because I had been sipping beer brewed by trapist monks with a penchant for high alcohol by volume.

Given the revelation, I decided to attend a happy hour after work one day thrown by said fellow's team and another in the same department. I arrived knowing almost no one, and hid out front for a few minutes in 114 degree heat, wondering if anyone I knew was in some secret room after seeing no one I recognized. While I stood sweating awkwardly, an elderly man approached with his cart saying, "Ooooooweee, you picked the right day to be standing here!" His cart was covered in cheap cotton underwear, which was probably newer and nicer than any I own, but was also probably hot off a shelf at Walmart, so I giggled at him and said, "No thank you," and he headed on his merry way. With sweat beginning to pool and drip rather than bead, I decided to suck it up and head inside. When I approached a table of ladies who looked like they could be members of the opposing team, they confirmed that they do work for the same company, but noted they are not members of the team for whom I was searching, and instructed me to head out back and not to forget my sunglasses. I laughed awkwardly, introduced myself more awkwardly, and headed for the door with my sunglasses.

Upon exiting, I found a patio graced with a painting of two horses humping in an otherwise pedestrian equestrian scene and a long table surrounded by coworkers whom I barely know or haven't met. Feeling gutsy, I proceeded to the far end of the table where a bunch of strangers and one person I met once were seated, and pulled up the heaviest metal chair I have ever attempted to lift. With a mild welt forming on one pinched finger, and vaguely out of breath, I sat down and said hello while shyly reintroducing myself to the semi-acquaintance, who, when he met me the first time, was shocked to learn I had been with the company for over a year. He laughed and didn't remember me while others smiled politely, but avoided introducing themselves, as I did. I took my seat beneath an umbrella that was dripping water from the kindly mist system. It felt glorious, but it was also soaking my shirt through.  I embraced it for a while and ate a hamburger in between strained smiles and attempts to become involved in the conversation.

When a few people with whom I felt comfortable making small talk showed up fashionably late, I promptly restationed myself in the direct sunlight atop a searing concrete bench. My butt threatened to blister, but at least I felt mildly less self conscious for a moment or two. We carried on for about a half hour before I decided it was time to surrender and head home. I said my farewells and headed out through a metal gate with sharp points protruding at my forehead level. My face bounced off of them, and I walked on, head held high.

Hi again

This blog has become totally scattered and nonsensical, much like my brain. That's fine. I'm just going to keep up the randomness because it's fun for now. I keep trying to devise witty names and taglines, but everything cool seems to be taken, so a sad hamburger I shall remain.

Life keeps plugging along. While I drove home from work this afternoon in a line of scorching-hot Vegas rush hour traffic, I remembered how delightful it is that I am able to do this--go with the flow and be pulled along by the waves of routine and day-to-day living.  I keep thinking of Syria and the people there who have lost all semblance of the mundane. Of course, that leads to thinking of people everywhere who would kill for a bit of ho-hum afternoon driving. My mind fills up with sheer terror when I think about what it would feel like to leave home behind and venture into the desert with little food or water, fewer belongings, and hopefully my family, but maybe not. That is what is happening to thousands of civilians, though while their government and their rebels fight it out. I am not nearly well enough informed to make many valid arguments about this, and I don't feel okay about taking a firm stance that the armed forces should be there because I am not exactly jumping at the opportunity to enlist and fight. I don't think fighting ever solves anything, but I am small and simplistic in the grand scheme of humanity, beliefs, and limited resources. I do feel, though, that I have an ethical responsibility to these people, and that the world does. I also feel that we are on the brink of a third world war. I suppose the world wouldn't be the world without them. We've gotta have something to teach in history class, right? And fodder for another generation of movies.This being human is messy and scary. It's easy to stick my head under a cushy pillow and pretend that everyone is having the same good fortune I am, afternoon traffic and all. I am open to suggestions on how to surface in a meaningful way.