Off Kilter

I met a friend in Dupont Circle last night. As I rode the escalator upwards from the Metro, lost in thoughts I was meeting the friend in order to escape, I suddenly realized that I was off balance and needed to shift position. I was leaning on one arm on an escalator in which the handrail moves slightly faster than the treads. My hand had gradually moved farther and farther from my body until finally I was jolted into awareness that I was in danger of falling over if I didn't readjust my position.

It made me start thinking (again) about the last few months. Recently I've been happy and content in a way that seems almost too good to be true in retrospect. I'd found companionship, intimacy, and fun in the same person, and the seductive promise of ongoing happiness hovered within reaching distance.

It was a dangerous sort of happiness, though, given what I knew about the challenges we faced. Heedless, I opened my mind to new visions of what the future might hold. With this person, I willingly embraced new possibilities and redefined my expectations.

Now things have ended, and I'm left with my changed ideas about what I want from life and without him to make them into reality. I feel adrift, off-balance, oddly not myself without him. My new dreams for the future don't fit my current reality anymore, and I'm not sure how to adjust. I'm forced to shift positions in order to find my balance again, but I'm not doing it as easily or as gracefully as I'd like.

Start with the Ending

I've been thinking lately about the lyrics in a David Wilcox song:

The secret of a happy marriage,
maybe you should write this down
If you want to keep a love together,
the best way is to end it now
Because when you both know its over,
suddenly the truth comes out
You can talk about your secret passion,
you can talk about your restless doubt

When there's no pretending,
then the truth is safe to say,
Start with the ending,
get it out of the way
Now there's no defending,
because no one has to win
Start with the ending,
it's the best way to begin.*

It's somewhat flip (especially to hear it sung), but I think there's truth to it. I've been in relationships that became really honest at the end, when neither of us was trying to posture or preserve some facade. Once I knew it was ending, there was no reason not to say exactly what I thought, wanted, needed. By that point, there was too much water under the bridge to preserve the romantic relationship, but maybe if we'd been that honest in the beginning...

And that's the point of the song. What if you took the attitude at the beginning that there's no reason to hold anything back? What you presented your true self instead of who you think the other person wants you to be or even who you'd like to be on your best days? This would require either an immense dose of self-confidence and bravery or a lack of expectations, but how much better could that kind of relationship be? Some relationships might not get off the ground under those circumstances, but wouldn't the one that did be amazing?

*Copyright 2000 published by Midnight Ocean Bonfire Music (ASCAP)/Cindy Lou My Dear (ASCAP), a division of Soroka Music Ltd.

Transported

The Wood Brothers played a local show the other night. They're a guitar/bass duo, actual brothers, who are incredibly talented. I was invited by a good friend, and it took me back to a time in my life when I often saw several bands a week. I miss that!

This was the best type of show, the kind that sweeps you up and carries you along without a sense of time or place. I watched Chris rock out with his bass like he was Eddie Van Halen, making it a full body experience. Now his fingers dance, plucking the strings. Now he glides the bow across the strings, then tossing it away. I watched the strings glint in the stage lights and saw the worn spots where he thumps the body of the bass for the occasional percussive touch. I heard Oliver rasping out the lyrics, watched him bob to the music and slide his fingers over the strings of his acoustic and electric guitars. Time ceased to pass as the music swirled around me.

For an hour or two, I was transported outside of myself and immersed in the music. I should do this more often.

Man on Wire

I saw "Man on Wire" yesterday, a movie that's gotten universally good reviews (an unheard-of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes).

A documentary of a notorious wire (tightrope) walker, the magic of the movie for me was in the characters and the dynamics between them. It's the story of Philippe Petit, a Frenchman obsessed with wire-walking in ever more daring situations. From a home setup, he graduated to stealth rigging of wires between the towers of Notre Dame, across the Harbor Bridge in Sydney, and finally, in his crowning achievement, between the twin towers of the World Trade Center (in 1974). The movie concentrates on the planning and execution of this last caper.

The man is a consummate showman, infecting everyone around him with his enthusiasm: his girlfriend, his friends, the World Trade Center employees whose help he enlisted, and even one of the arresting officers after the WTC prank, who said what he did should be called "dancing." Not content to simply walk the wire, Petit would balance on one foot, kneel down, even lay on the wire halfway across.

The movie was paradoxical and moving.

What should have been Petit's biggest triumph was his downfall in my eyes. His newfound fame went to his head, and his first action after being released from jail after crossing between the WTC towers was to hole up in a hotel with a new groupie, abandoning his friends and girlfriend to wonder where he was. His relationship with his girlfriend and his best friend fell apart shortly afterward. The girlfriend, 24 years later, seems to still idolize him and feel it was inevitable that he would move on to other things. The best friend, however, is clearly still haunted by loss of their friendship, which is never fully explained in the movie.

Petit does not seem to be bothered by the human toll of his obsession. He is depicted as being alone in the world now, save for the wires set up in his backyard, and that suits him fine. Should we be happy for this man who's achieved what he wanted and seems completely self-sufficient? Or should we pity him that his fixation has left no room for the other things he might have done with his life?

While his triumph left me depressed, the images of the World Trade Center were strangely soothing. We've all become accustomed to the scenes from 2001, including the fall of the towers and the steel reinforcements surrounded by debris. The footage in this movie was of those same reinforcements being erected, of the workmen who built them, of the architectural details, and of the intact roofs, with a concentration on how their features could be used to make a man's dream come true. It made me hopeful to remember that there were good elements in the buildings' histories and they're not entirely defined by their ending.

Being Handy

Today, my big accomplishment was fixing two leaky faucets.

For a month (two? three? how long can you ignore such a thing?), two of my faucets have been leaking. They're in the two places in my house most likely to annoy me - I can hear the dripping when I sleep and when I work. Lack of time, lack of knowledge, and laziness have prevented me from fixing them so far. I close the bathroom door when I sleep and turn on the TV when I'm working.

I decided today was the day. It was either do work or fix the faucets. Faucets seemed like more fun.

It required a little research in the Time-Life book for Home Improvement, a little more research online, and only one trip to Home Depot (including a tool I was afraid I'd never use again but was worth the entire $13 I paid for it!). Plus one call to my dad and one call to Moen (where they collected information for a call-back instead of putting me on hold).

The biggest challenges were actually solved by the Home Depot tool and by a little elbow-grease.

Now my faucets turn on when I turn them on and turn fully off when I turn them off. Almost as good, they turn hot when you expect it and cold when you don't. I'm living in a brand new world, where delights await me every time I wash my hands!

Life is good.

Laughing in my Sleep

This morning I had the delightful experience of waking up laughing! I had a bizarre dream that started off with a life-threatening experience and ended up with a bowl full of tiny multicolored water balloons with a life of their own. They started slipping out of their bowl and through the cracks in the table. I cupped my hands under the table to try to keep them from bursting on the floor, but they just filled my hands and squeezed between my fingers, as if their mission was to throw themselves on the floor. I woke with the memory of a handful of brilliant water balloons and what felt like an audible laugh.

Not a bad start to the day!

My Life Past Midnight

It's been a long and stressful week as I get closer to my big July deadlines. I swore after February that I was not going to be up until all hours writing documentation for the next release. Things looked promising until our tech writer got sick (he's dropped 30 pounds in the last three weeks, so clearly something is very wrong).

So I'm writing again, and it's become my second full-time job.

The line between night and day has blurred. I'm sending email at 3AM and taking naps at 5PM. I go to the gym at 11PM and eat a second dinner at 2AM. Business calls at 8AM and 2AM. After a while, it stops feeling so strange, and I just stumble around in a fog.

The silver lining in it all is that I've developed a surprisingly rich post-midnight social life. One friend on the other side of the world regularly checks in around 2 or 3AM to catch up and then encourage me to go to sleep. I've forged another surprisingly important friendship with someone who stays up with me for hours each night, talking about everything and nothing. (Is editing docs and IM'ing at the same time multitasking or being distracted?)

Strangely, I'm a little sad that there's only another week or two of these crazy hours. After it's all over, what happens to these friendships? Are they going to survive the light of day and competition from real, live people and the daily run-around that keeps me from spending hours on the computer every night? Time will tell.

Campaign to Stay Sane

Topics of the day: Worry, Stress, Depression

Worry: I picked up two friends and their nephew this morning to take them to the airport. The nephew was going to live with his grandmother for a month, and I witnessed the advice and admonitions from his mother before we took off. "Be respectful. If you're disrespectful, I will hear about it! Don't talk to strangers. If someone tries to touch you in the bathroom, yell 'Fire!' Don't go to the bathroom by yourself. Make Uncle S take you." Then she started tearing up. I felt bad - how must it feel to send your young son off by himself for a month? - I can't relate.

Apparently she can't either. It turns out there was a last minute plan change yesterday, and she's flying to the same place on Monday for 25 days. All those instructions were for two days apart!

Stress: I'm in the last few weeks before our product release, and everything's getting stressful. The last time we had a release, the stress and late nights, the lack of sleep and social contact, knocked me out. The day after the release, I woke up sick, sick, sick. I was laid up in bed for a week, felt sub-par for three weeks, and had a lingering cough even two months later.

So this time, I'm trying to take better care of myself. I'm taking all of today off from work - haven't edited a single doc, looked at a bug, or sent an email. Better yet, I've started a workout pact with some friends. We're all trying to accomplish five workouts a week for the next month. Now I have a guilt-free reason to do something every day that's not work, and best of all, since it's my get-out-of-work free card, it feels fun.

Depression: My friend recently turned her life upside down and decided to start a foundation. The foundation, inspired by her brother, is to promote suicide awareness and prevention, using the arts (music, painting) as a hook to draw people in and get them to listen to the message. Tonight is the foundation's launch, so I'll be getting dressed up and heading out to support that in a few hours.

Best of luck, S!

7 +/- 2 (aka Corporate Rants, part 2)

Seven minutes of programming, plus or minus two minutes, between commercial interruptions.

I'm watching the season finale of Grey's Anatomy on my DVR. There seemed to be an inordinate number of commercials, so I started timing it. The results were infuriating.

They give us a treat at the beginning and end of the show (10 and 15 minutes respectively). But for nearly two hours in between, the programming averaged just under 6 minutes per segment (minimum 4, maximum 8).

For anyone who cares, the commercials ran 2-4 minutes per break (average just under 3 1/2).

Remember when there were only 4-5 commercial breaks per hour? I feel like companies keep reducing their services just because there's nothing we can do about it. At least I have my DVR. (Ha! See Corporate Rants, part 1.)

Name Change

I changed the blog name from "Random Thoughts" to "Rambling Thoughts." It's so much more appropriate, given my fondness for travel!

I had to edit that from "So much more appropriate..." Why do I tend to drop the subjects from my sentences?

Getting Away

I just returned from a weekend away, and I'm already counting the days until my next trip (nine!). At the same time, I've been scheming (unsuccessfully) to get an overseas business trip. My friend and I are trying to plan a long trip in November. I'm yearning to go visit a bunch of friends I've made on various business trips recently.

Somehow these trips have started to feel more like my "real" life than my real life does. On trips, I work less (or not at all), I grab every opportunity for a new experience, I'm fearless, I make new friends and find opportunities for romance. It's the "me" I want to be.

I wish I could tuck my travel attitude into my suitcase to bring home with me.

Going Home

Going home is usually easy for me, but Mother's Day weekend was rough. It was my first time in my parents' new house, and I kept driving by the house I grew up in, seeing the new owners' moving trucks. It was bittersweet because I do love the new house, which has more room for my brother and his family to visit at the same time as me. This was the first time my parents could have us all visit without giving up their own room.

*snip from original post*

The last year has presented a series of revelations of how fragile life is and how little it takes to turn it upside down: a few seconds in front of a driver who's not paying attention, a phone call with an abnormal test result, and everything changes. Can the good things also strike like a lightning bolt? I'd like to think so.

Red Betty / Red Beauty

There were no grand coincidences, no evidence of the hand of fate at work in forgetting my license on my recent work trip. However, it did lead to some fun moments and my acquaintance with Betty, or Red Betty, as I like to call her.

Betty was rented by a group of Australians attending the same work event as me. The three strapping men were expecting to rent a comfortable four-door car in Salt Lake City when the driver was seduced by the offer of a red Mustang, a classic American muscle car. Over the objections of the guy who would have to cram into the back, they upgraded to the car that was quickly christened Betty.

At the beginning of the week, I learned that they were returning to the airport Thursday night, which was perfect timing for me. I didn't realize when I asked for a ride how much stuff these guys would buy! Thanks to the weak American dollar, they acquired motorcycle boots, new clothes, a PS3, and some kind of large guitar-based PS3 accessory. The car's trunk was full, and the guitar and a suitcase were spilling over into the interior of the car.

We spent a hysterical five minutes trying to cram everyone and everything in. First I was in the backseat with an Aussie and a suitcase, with the guy in the front holding the guitar. However, he once he got the guitar in his lap, he couldn't reach the door handle to pull it shut. The eventual solution was to put me in the front, seat fully forward, and jimmy the two guys into the back with a suitcase and the guitar. They each had an inch of forehead barely peeping over the top of the packages.

By the time I'd spent the hour's ride to the airport getting intimately acquainted with Betty's dashboard, I'd gotten fond of her myself. We arranged for me to take over the rental and "keep her in the family." The guys hopped their plane after a few fond farewells, and Betty and I headed south.

I took many pictures of Betty in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks, and we logged nearly 800 miles together on the road. It turned out to be Betty's last hurrah as a rental car; she was sent off to auction when I returned her to Hertz. I like to think the story has a Black Beauty sort of ending: she's now retired from her hard life of servitude to an easy life of washes and waxes and drives on curvy roads.

New Habits

I've realized this week that I've picked up two new habits:

(1) I've started thinking about myself in the third person.

"Cheryl likes the bubbles that result from setting down the dishwashing soap." "Cheryl wonders why nobody in Provo knows directions." "Cheryl has picked up several irritating new habits."

This is a side effect of increased Facebook usage - the status updates are always written in the third person. The constant vigilance for an amusing update has resulted in a habit distressingly similar to the "royal we."

(2) I cannot set down a small object on a flat surface without deliberation.

Pens, my hands-free devices, lip gloss, anything smaller than a breadbox...they all have a tendency to be treated as toys by the small gremlin living in my house. These "toys" usually end up under the TV stand or a larger piece of furniture, not to be seen again for many months.

Away from home this week, I've experienced this phenomenon with my earrings, eye drops, and the room key. I start to set the item down, hesitate while considering the item's safety, then realize there are no gremlins here. I then set the item down with a mixture of relief and regret. I miss the gremlin.

Not So Bright, Myself

If you've read the previous post, you may find it amusing that I'm not the brightest bulb either. I left town for a week today and didn't bring my driver's license. Oh, I have my passport, so I could get on the plane, but no license, which makes renting a car rather difficult (read: impossible).

Fortunately, it's not a total disaster. My hotel is within walking distance of where I'm working this week, so the only hard part was getting to the hotel, which was an unfortunate $120. Ouch. A very dear friend is Fed Ex'ing the license so I'll have it in time for my bonus weekend at the national parks a few hours away. So really, it could be worse.

What's amazing is that I had so many opportunities to bring a license and still ended up here without. I actually have two licenses at the moment because I lost one, replaced it, and then recovered it. One of the licenses is sitting in a small pile of items from my last trip, the pile of items that was considered and rejected for the current trip. I supposedly had my other license, so why bring a duplicate?

The license that I thought was in my purse is actually in the back pocket of the jeans I wore Friday night. I came this close to bringing that pair, but ultimately pruned them from the suitcase because they were long and I expected to wear flats this week.

These are the kind of circumstances that will make a really good story someday if something happens that would only take place without having a car: I avoided an avalanche where I would have been hiking today, the cab driver later this week ends up being the man of my dreams or a long-long cousin, that sort of thing. I'm still watching for the hand of fate and will keep you posted. In the meantime, I'll be doing a lot of walking.

Right vs. Left

People in Provo, UT don't seem to be able to tell right from left. I've had to ask for directions three times today, and 100% of the people I've asked (only two people, but still!) have gotten right and left backward.

With the first girl, on the phone looking for the hotel, I thought it was just a curious mistake. "Turn right at the light and the hotel is on the left" should have been "Turn left at the light and the hotel is on the right." I shrugged it off. But then 20 minutes later, after checking in, I asked for directions to the elevator, and she got it wrong again, and then I knew something was up. For someone working at a hotel, where many guests are presumably unfamiliar with the area, this is a significant handicap. Later, at a restaurant, I asked someone else where the restroom was, and the right/left aspect of the directions were wrong again!

For fun, I'm going to start asking people directions to locations I already know, just to see what they say.

Treated Like Royalty

I recently took a trip to an Asian country for a wedding. I've met the groom a few times, but I was really going because I'm friends with his sister. She's been telling me about "home" for many years, and we've always tossed around the idea of me visiting. This seemed like the perfect opportunity, since there would be lots of wedding-related festivities and other out-of-towners, so I bought it ticket and took a week-plus off work.

My friend's brother is a politician who is apparently fairly well-connected, so I stepped off the plane to someone in uniform holding up my name at the end of the jetway (post-security). He led me to the politician, who remembered me from visits to the states and greeted me kindly. I sat in the President's Lounge (literally) with him, sipping ice water and waiting for my friend's plane, while someone waited in the customs line and retrieved my suitcase from baggage claim. Once my friend arrived, we climbed into an SUV that was waiting in a "no parking area" right outside the airport, and we were whisked off to her mother's house.

At the house, as at every meal I had on vacation, we were served a feast. Dish after dish...steamed fish, grilled fish, giant prawns, mango salsa, dried fish, various types of rice, and (oddly) spaghetti alla carbonara. Maybe the Italian food was served in case I was a spoiled American brat. I had only a little and dug into the other food, so after that night, I never saw anything on the table that didn't look like a local specialty.

After a few days in the big city, we flew off to an island on a chartered flight. Sun, sand, mojitos, spectacular service at the hotel, and fun times with the stag party of 30 guys, several of whom I had met previously. Two of them (one of whom I had met briefly in the past) were kind enough to pay for my plane ticket! The only disappointment was the day I thought they were going to spear-fish our lunch, but instead they just bought it fresh from the market. It still tasted great!

The wedding itself was beautiful. Late afternoon sun slanted in through the partially open church, the bride and groom both looked wonderful, and the wedding guests made a special point to speak English when I was around. I met a couple that lives a mile from me at home; they're the parents to two people I know in the States. Small world, huh?

The next few days were mostly family time, and by the end, I felt like I was part of it. As I was leaving, my friend's mother pressed a bracelet on me with religious icons. It's very attractive and has become part of my standard flight attire (with the yoga pants and warm socks). I've flown safely so far.

I met up with my friend tonight for the first time back in the States and was invited back for a longer visit in the summer of 2009. Hooray!

Independent Bookstores are the Bomb!

I just received the latest newsletter from my local independent bookstore. This is one of my favorite institutions in the world for the following reasons:
1. Their newsletters are actually interesting to read and don't come across as a strong sales pitch.
2. They offer book readings by people I may not agree with but who always have something interesting to say.
2. They offer book recommendations based on criteria other than the NYT best-seller list.
3. They're publicizing a local book drive whose profits will go toward inner city education, and I have three stacks of unwanted books looking for a good cause.

This issue reviews A Room With a View, which is going on my must-see list. It's a constellation of efforts by fellow traveler and author E.M. Forster, Merchant and Ivory (so it will be beautifully shot), Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (who has written many enchanting short stories in addition to this screenplay), and an all-star cast including Judi Dench, Daniel Day Lewis, Helena Bonham Carter, and more.

Buy local!

Boston

I was in Waltham, MA for a class on Monday and Tuesday and decided to take the opportunity to see Boston. I flew in early Sunday morning and spent the day wandering Boston Commons, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and doing part of the "Freedom Trail," camera in hand. The highlights were the photos that came out well, the guy playing percussion outside Fanueil Hall with buckets, a grill top, and other non-traditional "drums," and having a beer in a neighborhood pub that had been recommended to me.

As some people may have already realized, this means I was in Boston for the Superbowl. I watched the first part of it in a restaurant over dinner, but the game was still going pretty well at that point. I saw the latter half of the game, including its shocking end, from my hotel room. I have to say, I'm glad I was not out with a lot of Patriot fans for the end!

Boston gets a thumbs-up from me. I'd like to go back sometime when the weather's warmer.

Sick

I've felt the looming presence of a cold for weeks now - when I visited the niece and nephew over Christmas, when the niece was feverish at the end of January, when my boss came to work ill last week... Being sleep-deprived since mid-December while working on multiple releases increased my susceptibility, I figured. But I didn't have time to be sick! I had a release and another release!

Well, the last big, public release was Thursday. I started feeling ill Thursday night. How's that for timing?

I've had a very slow weekend - nap, read, nap, watch TV, take a hot bath, nap. I ventured outside today to buy soup and cough drops, but I was extremely happy to crawl back into bed when I got home.

I did manage to finish Tender is the Night (Fitzgerald) this weekend, but my reading's been frequently interrupted. I recently enjoyed Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys). Although it is the story of Rochester's wife in the attic from Jane Eyre, it stands on its own.

Release

The product manager finally called me back (he'd missed his planned flight), and the product was officially released on time!

Things are still busy at work because I have several smaller releases (plug-ins and such) for the next three weeks, but it's a long weekend, and I've finally gotten back to some fun. Interspersed with the Christmas reading, I've knocked a few more off The List: Catch-22 (deliberately absurd) and two books that have whet my appetite for traveling again - A Room With a View and A Passage to India. I also picked up Ulysses from the library, hoping that I like James Joyce more now than I did in high school. We'll see.

Back by Popular Demand

That phrase might be a little strong. Actually, I got one comment asking where the new posts are. Well, I've been trying to get a release out the door and haven't had much time for writing. As of my morning drive to work, I had logged 48.50 hours on my timesheet for this week.

Today is the release day. I now have official sign-off from all necessary parties except the Product Manager. I am 99% sure he thinks it's a go, but I want to hear him say it before I pull the trigger. He had a flight today that landed at 4:30 PM (2.5 hours ago), but I still can't reach him. I have someone waiting to release the build and another person waiting to release the documentation, and I'm waiting for his call. And waiting. And waiting.

While I'm waiting, I have time for a post. I made two new Year's Resolutions this year:

1. Exercise more. No need to explain this one, right? I made a good start, going to the gym on January 2 and 3, but since then have been too busy or too sleep-deprived. However, considering my back pain has kept me from exercising since September (except for back exercises from my therapist), maybe I can still say I'm exercising "more" than before.
2. Develop a rotation of twenty "healthy" recipes. I love to cook, but my general attitude has always been "anything with butter is better." I'm now trying to augment my repertoire with stuff that's tasty but also low cal/low fat. I'm doing better at this one; during the release push I've cooked a few new recipes each weekend so I have leftovers for lunch/dinner during the week. Some of them have been quite good.

I'll also get back to the "top 100" novels once the product is released and I finish all the fun books I got for Christmas. Mmm, new books. :)

Day one of 2008! Happy New Year!

I slept late today, the result of accumulated sleep deprivation over the past two weeks and the Diet Pepsi I drank at last night's party instead of the proffered tequila shots.

Although I have not officially made any New Year's resolutions, I did walk for an hour on the W&OD today. How dreadfully cliche New Year's resolutions are! Why should you wait for January 1 to make a change in your life? But here I am, jumping on the bandwagon, at least to the extent that I'm making an exercise plan for the month of January.

We'll see what happens...