The Zen of Everythingâ„¢, Day 7: My blog is like a raw, raw fish

Rather than bore you fine people with the oft mind-numbing tedium of my workaday life, I try to keep the shop talk (and the whining) to a minimum.

Sometimes, though, there's a useful nugget buried in the poop of everyday existence, the kind that's like a shiny diamond you swallowed by accident, not the kind that's like a piece of undigested corn. (Ugh. It has been a long weekend.)

Without getting too much into kerning and coding and the rest of that stuff that sends people's eyeballs permanently to the backs of their skulls, The BF and I have been hard at some crazy-making detail work this weekend. Outside of an hour or so spent in the company of Alan Partridge and some fine pinot noir, we've had zero social engagements, and relieved to have none. And until this evening, we'd not walked farther than from the bed to the bank of computers provided by our robot overlords to do their bidding.

Have I ever told you the story of the last all-nighter I pulled? 38 hours straight, compiling a massive PowerPoint presentation for a client who was desperately trying to hang on to a piece of business, lest they have to fire even more staff. Everyone else, and I mean, everyone, to an office boy, took at least a few hours off to nap or shower or whatever. Not me. I got up to take in and expel caffeine, and that was it. I wrecked my health for a few days, got in a big fight with my then-boyfriend (I'd been too absorbed to check messages or call, so naturally, he assumed I was dead, or worse) and guess what? They lost the business anyway.

Not that we're close to being that kind of crazy overextended. Still, at about six p.m., I started lobbying for an excursion to fetch dinner. On foot. In the fresh, open air.

It took about an hour, one I suppose we could ill afford to spare. But had we stayed and ordered in, would we have come out ahead? Even? Or would maybe a little bit of us have slipped away and put us farther behind.

It's easy to blow off a walk, a weekend, a good night's sleep, a blog post. It's hard to keep those bonus-extra goodies a part of life. I've been sneaking in bits of writing here and there as I wait to be fed more pages to tweak. I do it because I made myself a promise, I do it because it keeps me human. And if I start chipping away at my humanity, what good am I going to do your website, much less the world.

Lesson #8, picked up between HTML tags on a Sunday night?: The non-essential isn't.

xxx c

Image by smaku via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

The Zen of Everythingâ„¢, Day 6: Not-great expectations

For a long time, my credo was this:

Always go to the party expecting to have a bad time and you might be pleasantly surprised.

I used it literally when going to a shindig, and metaphorically when approaching almost anything else: math class, the grocery store, doctors' appointments. I was really good at coming up with a doomsday scenario for just about anything, and I'd just tuck it away, right under my sunny disposition, like a spare $20 bill, just in case. It doubtless had its roots in cra-a-azy alcoholic mom behavior: when you never know what to expect, and at least half of the time what happens is pretty bad, you start protecting yourself by expecting the worst.

Through talk therapy and active self-awareness, I've reduced the behavior to where it does minimal damage; most of the time, if I feel the dreaded dread, I can muster an equivalent amount of enthusiasm to neutralize it.

Today, though, I had a phone call I'd been dreading making. My "phonebia" is well documented, and this was a long overdue return call to someone seeking reconnection after many, many years. Just thinking about it made me tired.

Resigned, I called; strangely enough, she answered the phone with the same kind of trepidation I know in my own voice where the phone is involved and caller I.D. is not. Only her issue wasn't caller i.d. (I enable mine), it was that in the five or six years since last we met, she's gone legally blind.

There are two interesting points of irony to note at this juncture: first, that had I known I was reconnecting with a friend who had lost her sight, I'd really have dreaded making the call. How could talking to someone who's gone through something so arduous, so dreadful, ever be something to look forward to? But the second ironic note to all of this is that the hour-long conversation turned out to be one of the strangest, lightest, most uplifting conversations I've had in a long time, on both ends, hers and mine.

Of course, we all grapple with being in the now. It's as easy to look back as it is to look forward, and with all sorts of lenses; it is very, very hard to be here now. My friend is re-learning the meaning of that every day, and she gracefully, graciously gave me a refresher course in it today. Today's installment in a continuing series...

Lesson #7: Dread is writing a future that does not yet exist.

xxx c

Image by MandaRose via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

The Zen of Everythingâ„¢, Day 5: Making life more like church

Before you atheists go running for the hills, or at least the greener pastures of more skeptical blogs, know this: I have never been much for organized religion.

In fact, the introductory essay to what I'd assumed would be my first book, How I Pulled My Head Out of My Ass (A Skeptic's Guide to Self-Actualization), is all about how church, or my indifference to it, made me realize that I was different from the other ducklings. (In a meta-way, it also became about my realization that it's really, really hard to write a book, but that's a lesson for another day.)

Church, as realized by the band of whitey-white Catholics in my hometown, was but an anemic facsimile of what I now believe CHURCH should be: a time/place for getting down with what's important to you that's different from the everyday, but similar enough each time you return that it provides a useful and consistent context for holding yourself up to the light.

So the physical space of "church" can be Joshua Tree or your tricked-out new age altar or 42nd and Broadway; conversely, you can create a practice, zazen, gardening, pinstriping, that puts Church inside of you.

From whence cometh this brilliant realization? From a book about branding mentioned in a post about questions on a blog about presentations. Questions one consultant asks of prospective clients, which we might do well to ask, period:

• Who are you?
• What do you do?
• Why does it matter?

Even if you, like me, are not one for religion, maybe especially if you, like me, are not one for religion, it's worth remembering that returning to the same, simple touchstones can be of value. Because in the absence of absolute authority, where can you turn but inward? That space is Church for the rest of us, where we go to reflect and recharge and pray.

And in that Church of You, how do you pray? Well, you've got to sort that out yourself, but I think an excellent place to start is...

Lesson #6: The language of prayer is the question.

xxx c Image by .michael.newman. via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

The Zen of Everythingâ„¢, Day 4: "Turn off your machine, Luke"

It's Table Topics at nerdmasters, and you're handed the topic you must speak on for one to two minutes: tell a story about a celebrity you've met somewhere, somehow, and elaborate if you need to from there (which is code for 'make it up if you have to.')

I didn't have to; between my job in advertising and my job as an actress, I've worked with dozens of them. But I didn't talk about the stars who worked for me as a copywriter, nor the stars I worked with as an actor. I didn't even talk about the time when, as a seriously crushing six-year-old, I met my idol, Miss America.

This is all significant because when someone before me had been asked the same question, and I'd run through all these in my head as possibilities. But in the moment, I decided to let go and see who else showed up. And it was Mrs. Loyal Davis, a.k.a. "Edith", a.k.a. mother of Nancy Davis Reagan, a.k.a. mother-in-law of then-Governor Ronald.

We met when I was 10, on some trip to Arizona. My father loved Arizona, so we went every spring. And his father, my grandfather, a terrific bon vivant who'd been chummy with Edie back in the heyday of Chicago radio, apparently insisted that Dad drop by and pay his respects when he was in town. Edie was getting up there and, well, you know.

Or maybe you don't. Or perhaps you've forgotten what it's like to be 10 and in a very hot and boring place full of adults you don't even know. At one point, when my dad was called away to something, the phone, most likely, I was left to my own devices. And Edie, Mrs. Davis, some bajillion-year-old lady who I didn't know from a hole in the ground, called me over to her.

"What's your name?"

"Colleen."

"Mm. How old are you, Colleen?"

"10. Ma'am."

"10. Mmm."

She looked my scrawny, 10-year-old self up and down, then beckoned me to come closer.

Ugh. For sure she was going to smell like old lady. And something bad like cheek pinching or admonishing or other Stupid Adult Behavior was going to happen.

"Colleen, I want you to remember something..."

"Yes, ma'am?"

She paused ever so briefly, and then, what I surely would have seen as a twinkle if I'd been sporting a clue, hissed, "They won't buy the cow if you give away the milk for free."

* * *

A perfect story, a gem of a moment, it had been lying under the dead weight of a hundred canned tales I'd been rehearsing in my head. And when I let them go? Just like that, there it was. As if it had happened a moment ago. As if I was 10 again...and 45 right now...and, oddly enough, beyond the veil, if you catch my drift, all at the same time.

That, I think, is Lesson #4: Everything is a breath away from everything else.

Whether you like it or not. Whether you believe it or not.

And maybe, there is a Lesson #5 in there as well:

It is not necessary for you to believe in it for it to be true...just to make itself known...

xxx c

Image by *hairbear via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

The Zen of Everythingâ„¢, Day 3: You can't climb a corporate ladder to entrepreneurial success

I don't have a single advanced degree, but even if I had five, I would need six more before I felt secure enough to call myself an expert.

I have over 20 years of quantifiable success in three areas of communications under my belt (and lately, a lot of pizza), but I would need 10 in this exact, specific one before I'd dare stand before a group of people and presume to teach them anything about it.

I give away my power every single day because I don't feel entitled to say "this knowledge counts for something."

And I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on this.

What brings this on? I went to an alumni networking event this evening. I've been to enough of them to know not to think of them as card-collecting expeditions, but as learning experiences. I've even been to enough of them to know I'm not necessarily going to learn what it is the "expert" thinks he is there to teach me.

Tonight, he came to teach me about how to become a better communicator; what I learned is that I am already the communicatrix.

A successful director I once knew put it best, between takes of a commercial we had hired him to direct. (He's since gone on to work in episodic TV, and quite successfully.) Five years before that, he'd been a production assistant, gathering experience on the sets of various film productions. Then one day, he declared himself a director. Because, as he put it, there is no director track.

Yes, there are nuances to be learned and skills to be honed, always. And thank god. That is the joy of work, that discovery.

What there is not is some magic key to the kingdom, or tap on the shoulder in the middle of the night that will initiate me into some secret society of You Are Officially Okay. There is only Lesson #3:

The last 10% is all about balls.

Or, you know, lady balls...

xxx c

Image by katiew via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

The Zen of Everythingâ„¢, Day 2: Two-fear Tuesday

Part the first: Fear of the Unknown

Around 4pm, I was crossing the street, wondering why no lessons had made themselves known to me yet (was I so close to enlightenment I perhaps needed none?) when I narrowly missed being mowed over by a high-end SUV.

The driver was mortified. He went white as a sheet, seriously, I saw it happen, even through the high-end tint on the windshield, and his eyes opened wide and he made the "oops" face (a.k.a. mea motherf*cking culpa), and he kept mouthing an apology even after I smiled and waved.

Now, the lesson wasn't that I stayed calm because I wasn't pressed for time, nor that he was wildly apologetic/remorseful as opposed to angry and defensive because I stayed calm. It wasn't even that SUV drivers, or pedestrians, for that matter, should watch where they're going. (Although I'm reasonably sure the reason I was not mowed over was because I was I happened to be paying attention, so, you know, watch it with the volume on the iPods, people.)

The Lesson, which, I swear, came to me in a flash, was that "safe" is an illusion. There is perhaps safer: I'm more likely not to have my house burn down if I don't smoke in bed or roast weenies over the sofa.

But the notion we (and by that I mean "I") generally walk around with, that I am "safe" because of x, y or z, is just that: a notion, and a pretty silly, self-absorbed one at that. Take a big step back from almost any situation and I'll bet you'd see anvils narrowly missing all kinds of Mr. Magoos. People get sick, natural disasters strike, the apocalypse happens. Even if I do a whiz-bang job of saving for the future, it won't mean a damned thing if the bottom falls out of the system. And there's not one thing I can do about that, except choose to live in fear...or not.

I used to not do a whole lot of things out of fear. I do more of the things now, but I still have the fear, which is probably why I got the lesson. No, not great to be struck down by an SUV at four in the afternoon (or ever), and yes, probably good to be alert. But maybe it's time to start dispensing with some of the fear. Because really, outside of those really appropriate times, like reminding you it's not a good idea to walk down a dark, unfamiliar alley or poke the bear with a stick, it doesn't much serve.

LESSON #1: Security is an illusion.

Part, the Second: Fear of the Known

On the way home from Lesson #1, I came across a brown paper Trader Joe's bag lying in the street. Feeling all virtuous and contemplative and stuff, I figured HELL, the BUDDHA wouldn't let this old trash defile the street; he'd carry it to his apartment building and put it in the recycle bin! I am like the Buddha! I will pick up this trash!

But when I did, it felt strangely heavy for an empty paper bag. Like...it might not be empty. A pit of sudden and inexplicable dread formed in my stomach. I opened up the bag, peeked inside...and dropped it right back in the street.

LESSON #2: When it comes to dead pigeons, in or out of brown paper bags, I am not like the Buddha.

xxx c

Image by anniebee via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

The Zen of Everythingâ„¢: a 21-Day Saluteâ„¢

As a writer, as a designer, as an actor, I've learned that there is enormous value in looking at a constant in changing contexts.

Doubtless this falls under the rubric of no duh for scholars or even the mildly observant, but it takes me awhile to 'get' things. A long, long while. Not that this is a problem, exactly (although it took me a while to get that, too). It's just the way it is, love me, love my interminable mental digestive tract.

For example, after two-and-a-half years of blogging, I still draw a blank when people ask me what my blog is about. I realize this is a cobbler's-children situation, but there it is: for the most part, when it comes to myself, I yam clueless.

What I have figured out over two and a half years of blogging is that this blog is a map of me, drawn from bumping up against the edges of everything. Fiddle-dee-dee crap like movies and books and current events as I flailed around in the beginning, more substantive stuff as I flail around now.

I flailed with the idea for this very series. It was certainly time for another Saluteâ„¢, the self-imposed, three-week jumpstarts I use to jog myself out of complacency and get my sorry ass writing regularly again. But what to write about? After all, I'm happy, my apartment is clean, we already know I'm a big dork, and my photos, well, until I get a better scanner, the rest of them are staying in the Rubbermaid container.

The Newtonian moment came several weeks ago, when I was bonked on the head with a back issue of Sunset, a magazine which has proven itself to be a strangely reliable source of comfort ever since I discovered it, some 14 years ago. I fell upon an article titled "Your garden makeover: 10 steps to success" and was struck, in that delightful, out-of-the-blue way that sometimes happens, by the universality of those 10 steps to success, the Garden Rules, specifically, by how well they applied to business, which is something that's been much on my mind since I started my own almost a year ago.

And there, suddenly, it was: my job was not to find The Lesson; my job was to let The Lesson find me. Because the lessons are everywhere (and nowhere) and can be found in anything (and nothing). They come when you seek them and especially (sometimes) when you don't.

That, Grasshopper, is some serious zen action.

So for these next three weeks, I'm opening myself up to The Lessons, or the lessons, lowercase, where ever they might appear. For they do appear everywhere, in the parking lot and on the cereal box as readily as they do in yoga class or Point Dume. They are there, everywhere, if I'm willing to shift my focus ever so slightly to the right. Or the left.

Or, you know, right here...

xxx
c

Image by etolane via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

The end of the world as we know it?

Let's get this over with right up front: I'm a believer in the apocalypse, at least the man-manufactured one that seems, barring a late-Act III entrance from some serious, ass-kicking deus ex machina, inevitable.

Additionally, I must confess that I came to my knowledge/world view late in the game, getting turned on to Kunstler and peak oil and other earthly delights after the vanguard, but apparently before the bulge of the curve. Ironically, I find this unbelievable: how can a political dunderhead like me be early to the party? Is it possible that the majority of my countrymen are more preoccupied, more obstinate, more, okay, stupider than I? For chrissakes, Will Rogers, American icon, pointed out the folly of ignoring the obvious more than 50 years ago; are people really so dense as to not get that, like land, at some point we will have burned through our supply of dead dinosaurs?

And really, really, does anyone actually believe in suburbs as an inalienable right? Of sprawl as manifest destiny? While we're at it, does anyone actually believe in Manifest Destiny anymore? That some unseen power said "Poof! lucky white dudes! You really are my favorites! Grab what you want, pave over the rest and throw up a Starbucks every 500 yards! And get me a decaf Venti soy latte, while you're at it, I'm cutting back on my caffeine intake."

Besides, as Kunstler himself points out in, among other writings, this excellent review (of what looks like an egregiously irresponsible book), for this you're chewing up resources? For 99¢ tacos and "Tuscan" minimalls and 3-Day Blinds and Axe? I'm no purist, I love In-and-Out and I drive my Corolla and I spend most of my waking life in front of a computer that will eventually kill off a square mile of rainforest or something when it hits the landfill, but Bratz dolls? Putting aside the allocation of precious resources to perpetuate several particularly nasty features of the patriarchy, on a purely aesthetic level, they are ass.

Like I said, I'm as bad as anyone else when it comes to much of my consumption, meaning it is thoughtless. I do not think about blood-stained oil when I curse the traffic on the way to my shrink appointment; I'm adding to the problem with almost everything I do, and thinking about the extent to which I'm stomping the world to death with boots, Australian Blundstones, borne to me across the ocean on fairy wings, natch, makes my head throb. How do I change!?! Where do I start!?!

Alertness, right now, is all I know I can do. And I know it is the thing to do in part because practicing it is so alarming. How starkly I am struck by my ability to take things for granted when the power goes out for 26 hours. 26, you see? Every last minute counted.

I've implemented a few things to help me stay aware and awake, which I'll share not to lord it over anyone (who am I to talk?), but in hopes that it might help a few overwhelmed types like me find a place to start:

1. I've trimmed down my possessions to the point where everything has a place, I can put my hands on most of them without too much thought, and there is plenty of space in between them.
2. For the most part, I did it by reasonably "responsible" methods of recycling and reducing consumption. On the recycling side, I've increased my reuse of items, paper, mostly, before sending things off to the Magical Recycling Place. (I've always been a fanatic about reusing bags and rubber bands.)
3. On the consumption side, I simply buy far, far less than I used to, purchasing used items where I can, borrowing where appropriate (e.g. the library instead of the bookstore), buying fewer trendy/disposable items and thinking about whether I can wait or do without before I buy.
4. Also concerning consumption, I've dramatically reduced the amount of fuel I use by quitting acting (which is mostly auditioning, which is mostly driving) and working from a home office. I live a little too far from the public rail system to make use of it, and buses are notoriously slow here in L.A., caught in the same traffic as cars, so I still drive my beloved Corolla. I've toyed with getting a Prius or a biodiesel conversion, but without retiring my car, I don't know how much good I'd be doing. The only long "commute" I have now is my weekly Toastmasters meeting, 10 miles away in the Marina. My plan is to finish out the year there, then look for a Toastmasters within walking distance of my home.

Not that much, really, but a start. And for anyone who's interested, #1 has improved my life in many ways besides feeling better about not being such a piggy. My stress level is down and my productivity up, if not in all areas of my life, at least in some.

Besides the peace of mind that comes with a reasonable baseline of organization has got to have some salubrious effect on the world, as well, if only in that it frees me up to think more about serious matters. Right?

xxx c Image by C-Monster via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license .

Frugality: the art of looking at things inside out

One of my odder fascinations has always been with the homely, humble art of thrift. I'm sure it springs partly from my fear of money (more specifically, of living out my retirement years in a shopping cart). Like lots of 60's babies, my young world was populated by adults who lived through the Depression; spend enough time in the Museum of Rubber Bands and Grocery Bags, it's bound to influence you.

But my passion for thrift is about more than saving the odd dollar or being able to wave the flag of righteousness. Frugal living satisfies the urge to create, to conjure. To think outside the box (which can be re-used as an inbox, cat bed, fort for the very tiny or jaunty chapeau for the mad). It's contemplative and giving, not loud and grabby. And as life gets louder and faster, I value quiet, both internal and external, more and more.

I remember the excess of my father's house as just that: excess. Too many things, too much noise, too much churn. TVs everywhere, closets bursting with unworn clothes, new cars before the last ones were old cars, jewelry bought at a premium and given away on eBay. Pointless, inelegant things, like the $300 throw pillow covered in, I shit you not, seashells. Because there's nothing that spells comfy snuggle on the couch like a gigantic coral reef against your head. And how.

I'd blame it on his significant other, who was clearly the shopper in the family, but the truth is, Dad just as down with the always-on, bigger-is-better, 20th century-American lifestyle. Or inured to it. Or something. He lived in those houses, he drove those cars, he chose that life.

Taken too far, or course, thrift veers into tightwaddery, its dingy, B.O.-stained cousin. I've learned the hard way not to cheap out on health care, for example: an early, scary brush with an HMO OB/GYN has kept me on the straight and narrow for over 20 years. And don't get me started on the freezing showers and the three-square allotment of toilet paper of my maternal grandparents' house, a falling-down paean to thrift fondly dubbed "Gloomy Manor" by the ones with the bag collection.

Goodness and greatness both lie, as usual, in the ho-hum middle. What seems to work best for me is a foundation of alert and sensible thrift, gently padded here and there with worthwhile luxuries. As I drill down to the center of the mess that is my money, I get comfortable both with having more and needing less, with conserving usually and splurging occasionally. True, my version of splurging, lunch out at a restaurant just because, good incense and candles, 2-color Pantone business cards on heavy stock, is probably laughably tiny to most of my neighbors in a 5-block radius.

But I don't live in a 5-block radius anymore. I live on a big, beautiful planet.

See? It's all in how you look at it...

xxx c

Image by Richard- via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Taking the introvert on an outing

Really, if I look at it, my life has been one long, loopy trajectory that's about me getting down with two things: (1), I am a BIG nerd; and (2) given my BIG NERD druthers, or at least a return to my default settings, I would not be a Mad People Magnet but That Crazy Lady Who Never Leaves Her House.

I mean, really: a huge part of why I quit acting, you know, aside from the bit about the Changing Media Marketplace and aging into non-castability, was because I came to despise going out on auditions. De-pise, I tell you. The traffic! The parking! The incessant nattering in the waiting rooms! The deep and mind-numbing crapfulness of the copy. The smiling. Seriously, it gets to you.

But I recognize that while I must acknowledge and embrace my truth, that I suck at what makes extroverts thrive, I must just as surely continue to bravely fight against it. And so I continue to put myself out there, at Toastmasters, at TequilaCon and tonight, at a (god help me) networking event for actors.

The damned thing of it was, I had a great time. Not a long time, but a great one. I met a handful of total strangers. I walked right up to them and started asking them questions. They seemed happy to talk to me. I was delighted talking to them. They gave me information I needed, how to make my column better. And I gave them information they could use, how to walk up to people they'd never, ever met at a networking event and talk to them. Cards were exchanged, promises made. I was in and out in just over an hour.

Afterward, because it was a cool, clear night and because it had been a long time since I'd been in West Hollywood, I took a bit of a walk down Sunset. And since I'd turned my lights on, as it were, I wound up interacting with some of the denizens: the cashier at Pink Dot, who (understandably) had a scrim up between himself and the world, but who came around from behind it when I asked him about the journal he was writing in. Three, count 'em, three valet parkers. Some sundry passersby. And one very stylish young man who, as I was breezing by on the way back to my car, told me he liked my style. No charge.

And after that, because it was still a cool, clear night, and because I was feeling so good, I treated myself to the long way home: farther west on Sunset, San Vicente down to Wilshire, Wilshire all the way back to the crib. There was no traffic, there were only green lights. It was like I'd time-traveled back to 1987, the first time I came out to L.A. as an adult, and fell for the magic and possibility of the place. When I'd prowled the city incognito, pretending to be the person I couldn't imagine being then, on my own, sponsored by no corporate entity, making my way on my wits, creating the days as they came. Here I was, 20 years later, living that life.

Patience, friends. Patience and persistence and knowing when to ask for help. Some luck. Lots of hard work.

And yes, putting myself out there, even when, especially when, it felt better not to.

That is the truth. That is the gift.

That is the work...

xxx c Image by California4Life via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

When radio silence speaks volumes

A lot of what I do here on communicatrix-dot-com, or try to do, anyway, is externalize my process. Not because I'm a narcissist, but because I learn best from other people who externalize their own processes, so it's kind of natural to do the same.

But the other reason I externalize publicly is to do my part to stop Nasty Crap in its tracks.

Nasty Crap is the stuff that kills slowly. It's the cancer that chokes off love and hope and joy; it's the fallout of fear. It looks like many things, sexism, racism, rectitude, and shapeshifts like a motherfucker. Nasty Crap thrives on darkness and complicity, proliferating freely via its carriers (the Unaware, the Willfully Ignorant and the Truly Evil), crippling the future and leaving profound collateral damage in its wake. Pretty much anything can be turned into a tool of Nasty Crap, alcohol, money, God, sex, provided it's accompanied by by an awesome and towering willingness to ignore the Truth.

And of course, the more I turn it around in my head or bat it about in therapy, the more I see it really all boils down to (drumroll, please)...fear. (As if you didn't know.)

A couple of things have gotten me thinking about this recently.

First, for the first time in my life, I'm fat. Not FAT-fat, like my slack-jawed countrymen prowling the Midwestern airport food courts this weekend. Still, I'm definitely working a serious muffin top. I could blame inertia and butter, but I know the real culprit is fear. Living out loud is hard (i.e., engenders fear); buffers are deadening and fattening. So there's that.

Second, for some reason or another, I let the fear through recently. I'd been playing with it for a while, rolling it around on my tongue, bouncing it off of walls, but really dispassionately, like a scientist or a sociopath. When I actually sat with it, I had a Grand Mal meltdown that scared not only me, but The BF, as some of it had to do with my primary relationship, which much of that super-dee-dooper personal Fear stuff does. For me, anyway, Fear of Abandonment and all.

Here's where it gets tricky RE: the blog. To be honest, truly honest and transparent, the way I need to be if this is going to work, I have to express it. But to be responsible, I need to release it in a way that is useful and that will not harm others. As I was reminded on a very smart mailing list I subscribe to, one should never say anything on the interwebs "that you wouldn't want your mother, boss, children, spouse or the police to read about." To that excellent list I would add, "or that might hurt an innocent party, without a really, really good countervailing reason." You know, like stopping Hitler or something.

So this radio silence has been about me and my fear of moving forward, as has the muffin top and bad habit creep. I will not shed all my buffers all at once, I'm sure, but I'm back in the battle, or the saddle, again, fighting the good fight, airing my dirty laundry, mixing my metaphors.

I'll keep you posted on the muffin top...

xxx c Image by Proggie via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Hunker down and love up what you got

I can tell things are going awry when I want new things

better faster prettier sexier cleaner newer older things that will make the problem (whatever the problem) go away

they don't, of course (as if you didn't know)

all the new things do is make it harder to find what you were looking for under the other things,

the original things

the pain-in-the-ass busted-up broke-down not-working FUBAR horsepokey assmonkey facacta things

because the thing is you do not learn from a thing you thoughtlessly discard or haphazardly shove aside or even lazily disregard

you learn from the things you measure carefully you turn around in your head and your hand feeling their heft and weight and oily accumulation of dirt before deciding whether to keep or scrap or somehow alter

the learning comes from the considering

so when you hit a wall and you NEED NEED NEED a new thing to get you out of an old corner

hunker down and love up what you got

and you'll get it all back in spades, my friend, in spades...

xxx c

Image by thejane via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Life lessons from the IT department

There's a protocol at IT help desks for answering every call for help with computer difficulties that goes something like this:

1. "Is the machine plugged into the wall?" If "yes"...
2. "Is the machine--and something else plugged into the same outlet--receiving power?" If "yes"...
3. "Is the machine turned on?"

It goes on from there. Easy to mock (if you've never seen the email about it, see this site), but there's a great message in there that we don't always apply to our own decision trees:

Try the simplest thing first, no matter how "stupid" or obvious.

This was driven home to me recently. I'd been having problems with my mail.app program's display. I'd done elaborate troubleshooting, reinstalled twice, combed the web for solutions, and after coming up blank, was hobbling along, just living with it and using annoying workarounds.

One morning, I was grousing about it in front of The BF, who is, of course, a computer genius. As in, That Guy You Call when you're F*cked. He hates it. So much so, that I made a resolution to ask only under cases of extreme duress. Which this, of course, was not; it was merely supremely annoying.

A puzzled look came across his face. He walked over to the computer, clicked one (unmarked! unmarked! I swear!) button, and my display was back in action.

For me, the lesson, and the simplest thing, is usually to ask someone first. As someone with dependency issues well before becoming a sole proprietor, i.e., an independent cuss from way back, it is too easy for me to go a long, long time before asking for help. I'm learning to get over this by working with a business coach, yes, but also by being less of a loner: in the past couple of years, I've joined no less than five new groups that have all helped me expand my network, not for money-making reasons (although it's nice when that happens) but for information gathering and mutual assistance.

That's right, mutual. Because I have a different skill set and life experience than the people in my various groups. So what's befuddling to me, what seems like a huuuuuuge favor to ask, may be nothing less than a quick email back and forth, or a ten-second phone call.

And what's befuddling to you? To me, it may be as plain as the nose on your face. Or the cord from your computer, that's sitting just short of the outlet...

Image by Kitwe's Finest via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

What money really means

One of my dirty little secrets has to do with money: I'm afraid of it.

Between role models who lived it up with cavalier disregard for cash, dying either in debt or indebted to loved ones (myself included) for covering them towards the end, and others who destroyed their health and emotional life in the pursuit of money, it's a miracle I'm neither pushing a shopping cart nor wedged between walls of newspaper, tying used paper bags together with twine against some future disaster, like a Depression-era baby gone whack job.

While I'm not rich, I'm also not in debt, and there's no wolf at the door. For my age and considering my nutty career trajectory, I'm actually doing well, living proof of the magic of compound interest. I socked away whatever I could as a Young Corporate Tool, living in rat-traps (okay, mouse-traps) in Brooklyn on overtime meals and happy hour appetizers while maxing out my 401k contributions. And this was back in the golden '80s, with dollar-for-dollar matching employer funds. Yes, you heard me: dollar for dollar.

And I've never exactly been a slacker. I was fortunate enough to have my college paid for, received gifts of cash here and there from my generous relatives and yes, I was subsidized to the tune of $50/week for the first six months I lived and worked in New York. Still, I've always worked, and never lived off the largesse of a partner or spouse. There were fat times and lean, but I managed to stay afloat, buy and sell a condo, keep clothes on my back and food in my gut, have health insurance (the good kind) and, while I've never been one to live high on the hog, even enjoy some luxuries like nice dinners out, nice food in, travel, cars (every one of which, of course, I've owned outright).

So this is not the story of someone who suffered the financial equivalent of being raised in a locked closet and never knowing light or human touch until age 16. I was good, I was fine, I looked completely normal, even together, compared to some people I know.

And yet, I am so conflicted about money, so filled with anxiety and conflict and trepidation, I cannot balance my checkbook. I mean, I have, at times, but I won't do it consistently. I've let money languish in low-interest accounts rather than make the simple step of moving it to a higher-interest vehicle because somehow, keeping it vague is more comfortable to me that keeping it real. I stubbornly resist getting a handle on my money which, believe you me, is not the best modus operandi for anyone, much less a sole proprietor.

But I've never really understood why until today, when I read something Suze "Yes, I'm Gay!" Orman wrote in her column for the March issue of Oprah's magazine. Orman was counseling a woman who's in a relationship with a guy who sounds kind of creepy about money, and she suggests that maybe this chick should bolt, because...

When a person can't share his financial life, I question his ability to share his heart. The way we handle money is a manifestation of who we are inside, and how he approaches the subject signifies his love and respect for you.

I tell you, I almost burst into tears reading this. Because it suddenly struck me how much of my life I have lived in fear, how worthless I have often felt about myself and my abilities, how much better it felt to look somewhere, anywhere, else, to tap dance a little faster, instead of sitting in the feeling I was really having until I owned it and could move on.

I have a lot of work to do yet, but I feel like the worst of it is over. Because at least for this last stretch of uncovering myself, thanks to a freshly-out financial guru to the masses, I have some direction and a little more light to find my way...

xxx c

Image by Simon Pais via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Poetry Thursday: The Buffer Zone

People say they don't understand how drunks keep drinking how addicts keep shooting how smokers keep smoking how (your favorite group of degenerate wastrels here) keep doing (something you don't give a crap about, here)

I say: heroin poker Thursday nite Comedy Lineup YouTube--

Same difference

It's all just a buffer between you and your feelings between you and your work between you and what's really going on

Anything done too much too many times in a row takes on a life of its own takes you on a trip away from the Truth

You see I've never shot up but I've watched a full season of Dragnet smoked an entire pack of Marlboro reds drunk an entire bottle of wine in one sitting

Same fucking thing, my friend... same fucking thing

Comfort comes in many shapes and sizes and delivery systems

True access takes work and questioning and prodigious quantities of terrifying solitude of deafening silence

And too much of anything is no good at all, including surfing, including fucking, including poetry, including goodness

Especially goodness...

xxx c

Image by bob degraaf via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

Nerd Love, Day 21: Happy Uma Day

When I started this series three weeks ago, it was with the very conscious notion that it'd be winding up on one of the most ridiculous holidays in the world to be coopted by modern consumers, Valentine's Day.

Let us make no bones about it: Valentine's Day sucks. Having any designated day to buy things for other people sucks. Not that buying things for other people is bad; it can be excellent, when offered up in the right spirit of freedom, love and joy, just as most things are. But to know which holiday is on the rise two (or three months) out by the color of the merch poking out of the pallets in the CVS aisles as last holiday's tatty crap is offloaded from the "seasonal savings" ghetto to the final dumping grounds of off-price land, well, call me a cynic (as if you haven't already), but that, my friends, is one step away from hailing Big Brother in the streets.

So fuck that flowers and candy shit. Seriously. Fuck it fuck it fuck it. I have a far better way to honor the true spirit of the day, a festival! of love!, and save yourself money and help some people in need at the same time.

My friend, Uma, is in a hospital in New York City, fighting for her life, following a brain aneurysm two weeks ago. She's got people all over the world rooting for her recovery because yes, of course, she's one of those Fantastic People we really, really need more of on this planet. (And for you hopeless romantics who need your gooey icing on the cake, she's 27 and just got engaged.)

Her fiancé and her best friend have been sending out updates daily with news of her health or lack thereof, so we have a way to focus our thoughts. (You can read much of them online starting here.) It's a scary mix of not-good and good right now, with the not-good being about massive stroke and swelling of the brain and the good (the excellent) being about rapid neurological recovery that no one can explain.

This morning's request was a simple one: wear green. Draw a green heart on your hand, if you have no green. Send waves of good, positive thought out there towards Uma.

Uma was no more a fan of the crappy Valentine's Day that's turned us all into February scrooges than you or I. But as her best friend, Erik, points out, Uma is pro-love, and in a big way. And, in her more active times before this fall, was a hell-raisin', law-unabidin' rebel who viewed acts of rebellion small and large with glee.

So I cannot think of a better way to end this series than with an ode to Uma, and a plea for you to perhaps take a moment of your Wednesday to send a healing thought, or a minute to draw a green heart on your hand.

Except, perhaps, to end-end it with this:

Uma, wherever your thoughts are at right now, I know they approve...

xxx c

Nerd Love, Day 20: "A" is for alpha channel

Some days, you just get by.

Tired Fearful Small and crawly

on no sleep (troubles, troubles) and a too-early dentist appointment made in good faith a year ago kept in resignation and out of more fear (bad gums, the family curse).

And then after a day of throwing down too many cups of caffeine (all flavors)

and an afternoon of pushing through too many scary jobs,

tired and fearful, small and crawly

you straggle home exhausted from An Event (really, it was lovely, we were just fagged out and not in a gay way)

and The BF gives you a tutorial in alpha channels and makes all the bad things disappear.

This is why I love being a nerd

This is why I love being in love with one.

xxx c

Image by Colleen Wainwright and Brenton Fletcher

Nerd Love: A 21-Day Saluteâ„¢, Day 01

Dorks. Geeks. "Losers." Misfit toys.

Yesterday's post got me thinking: of all the people in the world, I love nerds the most. Nerds make lists. Nerds believe in science, not fairy tales, or when they believe in fairy tales, it's because they make them up themselves. Funny ones, not weird ones. Because while nerds are, in the main, incredibly weird, they are also creative and have a goddamn sense of humor.

No, I don't love all nerds. And yes, nerds can be incredibly annoying. I, myself, am often unbelievably annoying, ask anyone. Especially people who know me well.

But I can love something about almost any nerd, and I'll put up with their tics and quirks, their OCD and Robert's Rules of Order. Because without nerds, there would be no art, refrigeration, poetry, electricity, music, software, hardware, decent food, kickass design or funny movies that are actually funny, not to mention a whole bunch of stuff that people who tend to dislike or fear nerds use a lot, like churches, AM radio and the U.S. interstate highway system.

Bottom line: true nerds, Good nerds, if you will, don't think the world revolves around them. They have a healthy curiosity about the world around them, are always looking for new, cool, interesting stuff, and are continually improving themselves, whether they call it that or not. Nerds are helpful and additive, looking to make the world a better, more inclusive place (as opposed the world many of them, us, grew up in). Nerds don't leech off the system, step on people to get somewhere else, have grandiose notions of themselves or tell other people where to get off.

They can't: they're nerds.

Of course, there are plenty of people who are doing stuff that emulates self-improvement or invention or being helpful, but they are not real nerds. They are just sad. They are losers without the quotation marks. You can usually spot them by their lack of irony, and they're best given a wide berth. Talking to them is, sadly, a waste of breath. Wastes your time and annoys the pig, if you catch my drift.

So to offset the horror of the upcoming "holiday" (and boy, how much do I love putting THAT in quotes?!!), a 21-day buffer of lists and hacks, tips and tools, silliness and creativity.

An homage to nerdery. As if that's not what this whole, damned blog is already.

Let the dorkiness begin...

xxx
c

Image by word freak via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

French fries at the O.K. Corral: or, Telling Monkey-brain to go f*ck itself

Back in September of 1987, I met my friend, Karen Engler, for dinner in Lincoln Park. I asked her what was new and she entertained me with amusing anecdotes of her crazy job du jour.

She then asked me what was new; I said, "I quit smoking."

"Really!?! When??!"

I checked my watch. "6:30," I said.

She laughed and shrugged it off. I'd been smoking since before I met her, way back in my freshman year of high school, when I was just 14 years old. A nincompoop semi-authority figure furnished the contraband, Benson & Hedges Menthol 100s, which I smoked until I got hip to menthol's ghetto/pussy status, finally ending up where most hard-core smokers do: sucking down 2+ packs of Marlboros (both leaded and "light" flavors) per day, bought by the carton. Which was good, believe it or not, that was down from close to 4 packs/day.

There was no getting around it: everything about me identified with "smoker." My entire non-childhood persona, not to mention routine, was built around it.

But as I got ready to light that smoke at 6:25 pm, something flashed through me, or, more accurately, snapped. Partly, it was the very real projection of another seasonal bout of bronchitis. Partly, it was weariness, maintaining any habit so assiduously is exhausting. And just like that, I knew I was done. I don't know why or how exactly, only that me and cigarettes, we were over. I stepped on the trash can pedal, let go of the pack and that, my friends, was that.

Not that quitting was easy; to the contrary, every minute of every hour, every hour of every day, for the first three weeks was excruciating. I'd never experienced anything like it and hope I never will. (That goes for the flatulence, too, folks. No one ever talks about the extreme gastrointestinal upset that accompanies quitting when you're a heavy smoker. All I can say is keep matches handy. Lots and lots of matches.) And the first three months was pretty rough. And the next three years? No picnic, to be sure. But while quitting wasn't easy, it was simple, and it was clear.

Fast forward 19 years. Still a non-smoker, now a diet-cheater.

Here's me, shoving an entire slice of pizza down my gullet between Ocean and Lincoln. Here's me, burning through a roll of Rolos, a box of Smarties, a bag of Raisinets one by one (I'm a piece candy woman, not a bar candy one) like a chocoholic chipmunk getting herself squared away for winter. This is not the Me who used Will o' Iron to leave her hometown, her marriage, her career, her misery for Parts Unknown; this is crap. I hate crap.

What exactly is going on here!?!

It struck me in a flash: I hadn't a clue. It was time to get one. So I busted out a fresh notebook and made myself a list and a deal: write down the desired infraction and exactly what is going on in that brain of yours when you want to make it, then wait 15 minutes; if you still want it, knock yourself out.

I wrote the first retroactively, from memory, which was still pretty fresh. And I'd outlined the rationalization in detail for my pal, heathervescent, at breakfast that morning, anyway:

• "Toast @ breakfast"

• "I deserve it."
• "It's all I'm going to have 'bad' today."

Next, the current desire, fresh and fierce:

• want to order pizza

• "nothing in house" (...except stew)
• stressed!!! (jobs, underbid)
• I deserve it

Finally, I sat it out. 15 minutes, that was the deal. Only an odd thing happened as the minutes ticked away. Monkey-brain continued to want pizza; Big Colleen brain breathed a sigh of relief to find out it was only Monkey-brain, got up and started preparing some semi-convenience food she remembered Monkey-brain had bought at the store (Tasty Bites Eggplant whatever, along with homemade red lentil dal and cucumber raita.)

At this point, you are, if you're like me, wondering a few things. Since you are not me, and I had time to both ask the questions and answer them, I'll close the loop for you.

QUESTION #1: Wow. She had all that shit in the house?

Answer: Yes, I had all that shit in the house. Apparently, Monkey-brain only registered sad frozen reminder of bad stew experiment.

Lesson: in its relentless pursuit of food crack, Monkey-brain is nothing if not fierce.

QUESTION #2: Wow. She considers making homemade red lentil dal and cucumber raita convenient?

ANSWER: Yes. After two hard-core years of cooking every single thing but cheese from scratch, yes, I do.

Lesson: change takes a long time, until it happens all at once.

QUESTION #3: Wow. She thinks this one-off incident is somehow worthy of her longest and most weirdly formatted post in months?

ANSWER: Yes. Abso-fucking-lutely, for reasons which will soon become apparent.

Lesson: The Communicatrix knows more than you, and don't you forget it.

I'm laying it on the line, in black and white, or slightly gray and white, or whatever my CSS is dictating and your end-user device is capturing as you read this: the "snap" happened. I'm off the illegals*.

I suspected it two days ago but knew it for sure last night, when the lovely server at the Marriott Marina del Rey served me my breadless club sandwich with fully a half-plate of the most beautifully golden, sinfully fragrant, mouth-burning-hot-from-the-fryer specimens of thin-cut fries I've seen ever, EVER, and they sat, untouched, until our club treasurer showed up a half-hour later and (mercifully) polished off the pile in five minutes flat.

Me + a plate of hot, untouched fries = dunzo.

Next up, total global domination...

xxx c

Image by keso via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

*Note to any SCD-prospectives out there: this does not mean I'm on SCD. I'm not yet ready to give up my beloved Americano, a rather liberal interpretation of weak coffee which Elaine Gottschall would likely have taken issue with, and I'm not, for the time being, going to worry about rogue illegals, the 2% floaters that creep into virtually every food served in American restaurants, even the so-called "legal" foods. If you are just starting, do not follow my example, do SCD full-out, 100%, like it says in the book. No f*cking around, kids, especially if you're doing any of that lovely bleeding out of your rectum or spending time around doctors anxious to sketch out the new one they're going to build you. I'm well, I'm almost fat, I'm on meds and I've been stable for a long time.

The root of rye toast lust

It's no secret that I've fallen off the SCD wagon, big-time. It started with espresso, the gateway illegal, over two years ago. Espresso, and a spoonful of some shameless hussy of a dessert by Suzanne Goin, who should have a mug shot up in the P.O., as far as I'm concerned.

The bad news: once you transgress at all, you are no longer an SCD-er. Any transgression, no matter how small, puts you back at Day One just as surely as a sip of Bookers kicks you to the back of the bus at Alcoholics Anonymous. There's no judging; it's just that in the absence of better researched reasons for why it does and doesn't work, SCD requires fanatical adherence to the canon of foods handed down from Dr. Haas and Elaine Gottschall. There are no sanctioned cheats. Not a one. Period.

And so.

Yesterday, at the colorist's, I appalled even myself. Of course, I was only publicly, officially appalled after my good friend, L.A. Jan (we share everything) clocked me shoving two, count 'em, two Butterfinger-type crap candy singles into my mouth Augustus Gloop-style. (I'm reasonably sure I at least took the wrappers off.) When she replaced her eyeballs in their respective sockets, she asked me what the f*ck was going on.

I mean, I'm not even especially fond of Butterfingers.

I'm still sorting it out, but I think the kernel of understanding lodged somewhere in the back molar of my consciousness looks something like "You are not the boss of me!" Or, as I put it to my pal, Heathervescent, between bites of generously buttered, 100% forbidden rye toast at breakfast this morning, "F*CK YOU, MOTHERF**KER! You are not the boss of me!"

So many years of sucking it up, coloring within the lines, being a good girl, stuffing it down. So much rage. So much fear. It's going to find voice one way or t'other. And "F*ck you, motherf**ker! You are not the boss of me!" is pretty eloquent, if you ask me.

I have a sense of perspective, of course: I'm not perched above the quad in a clock tower with a rifle, or bankrupting the kids' college fund at the river casino's ATM, or even skulking behind the Rite Aid with a Marlboro Red. But I hate having something other than me owning me, so I need to get to the bottom of it.

Step One is noting it.

Step Two is noting it and not giving in.

To Butterfinger singles yesterday.

Or rye toast this morning.

Or Pizza Hut Thin 'n' Crispy Pepperoni Lovers' pizza, delivered, lukewarm and fresh enough, to my door in something under an hour.

Well, one out of three ain't bad...

xxx c

Image by LynnInTokyo via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license