This weekend I had a phone call with my father and brother. Most of the conversation revolved around my brother's upcoming decision about whom to fly for when he leaves the Navy. There was talk of money, retirement plans, vacation time, saving for the future -- lots of impressive grown-up stuff. My three major contributions to this exchange, however, somehow managed to cover the following subjects:
1. Sea monkeys
2. Galoshes
3. The song Disco Duck
The men didn't seem to lose respect for me, but that was probably because they weren't surprised.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Taking It Easy
Hey Everybody,
As part of this process of learning to enjoy God and enjoy life and figure out what would be fun to do, I'm going to release myself from the pressure to post on this blog regularly. You probably thought I had done that already, since I've been so sporadic about it for the last month or two, but it's taken a while for my mind to catch up to my actions (or lack thereof). I meant to post more, and felt a little bad about not doing so.
Your expectations have probably lowered by this point anyway, but I thought you deserved more formal notification. I might end up posting six times a day now, or I might not do anything for several months. The point is that I don't want to make any promises, because I'm not the one in the driver's seat.
I'll be out there, buying clothes, skipping church small group meetings, and trying not to feel guilty about any of it. I hope you all have your own kind of fun, too.
Thanks for reading and hanging in there with me,
Holly
As part of this process of learning to enjoy God and enjoy life and figure out what would be fun to do, I'm going to release myself from the pressure to post on this blog regularly. You probably thought I had done that already, since I've been so sporadic about it for the last month or two, but it's taken a while for my mind to catch up to my actions (or lack thereof). I meant to post more, and felt a little bad about not doing so.
Your expectations have probably lowered by this point anyway, but I thought you deserved more formal notification. I might end up posting six times a day now, or I might not do anything for several months. The point is that I don't want to make any promises, because I'm not the one in the driver's seat.
I'll be out there, buying clothes, skipping church small group meetings, and trying not to feel guilty about any of it. I hope you all have your own kind of fun, too.
Thanks for reading and hanging in there with me,
Holly
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Miscellany
Things went much better the next day with Verizon. I called our special person, Shauna, who knows who I am and solves all my problems. God bless her. I hope the evil behemoth she works for doesn't suck out her life force.
Subject Change
Today I went to a "round table discussion" hosted by the investment firm that handles my company's 401(k) plan. I signed up to go because the invitations went out right after I signed up for a 401(k) and had trouble navigating the company's web site, so I figured I had two cents to put in. When I walked into the room today, the first thing I noticed was the cookies, because I hadn't had lunch. The second thing I noticed was that it seemed sales-y. The woman who was obviously in charge was very friendly. We all had folded cards in front of our seats and there were markers spread around the table so we could write our name on them -- a cross between the United Nations and Romper Room. There was a also a tape recorder with a huge mic coming from it in the middle of the table. What had I gotten myself into?
I ended up really enjoying it! I've often thought that I would enjoy an environment where people sit around a table, batting ideas back and forth, being all smart and creative. Today I found that it's true, I do. A mini-revelation. So later I prayed, "God, this is a Thing. Here." I know how doing something full-time can drain the fun out of it, so I don't know if sitting around talking is what I should end up doing as a career, but it seemed worth noting. I also made another connection. I'd known before that I like to be entertained, and that I like to perform. Today I realized that I like to be entertaining. Serious performance might not be for me, but I like lighter fare, and I love, love, love to make people laugh. I also like to be the center of attention. I've learned to keep that beast under control, but perhaps it would be good for me to find an occupation where I don't have to -- someplace where I can be a big fat free-range ham. These were some of my thoughts today.
And finally, some funny signs, seen by me and people I know.
An advertisement for teeth-whitening strips on the mirror in the ladies' locker room at the gym: Isn't it funny how whiter teeth make your thighs look thinner?
Bumper sticker, quoted by my sadistic gym trainer: I had to lose my soul to make room for my sarcasm.
At a store called Sam Cinnamon's, in Portland, ME: On one side of the door, We buy junk, and on the other side of the door, We sell antiques.
Outside a shop in rural Maine: Ho-made donuts.
And finally, an establishment in Alaska: Frank's Bail Bonding and Coffee Cabana.
Good to know it's there.
Subject Change
Today I went to a "round table discussion" hosted by the investment firm that handles my company's 401(k) plan. I signed up to go because the invitations went out right after I signed up for a 401(k) and had trouble navigating the company's web site, so I figured I had two cents to put in. When I walked into the room today, the first thing I noticed was the cookies, because I hadn't had lunch. The second thing I noticed was that it seemed sales-y. The woman who was obviously in charge was very friendly. We all had folded cards in front of our seats and there were markers spread around the table so we could write our name on them -- a cross between the United Nations and Romper Room. There was a also a tape recorder with a huge mic coming from it in the middle of the table. What had I gotten myself into?
I ended up really enjoying it! I've often thought that I would enjoy an environment where people sit around a table, batting ideas back and forth, being all smart and creative. Today I found that it's true, I do. A mini-revelation. So later I prayed, "God, this is a Thing. Here." I know how doing something full-time can drain the fun out of it, so I don't know if sitting around talking is what I should end up doing as a career, but it seemed worth noting. I also made another connection. I'd known before that I like to be entertained, and that I like to perform. Today I realized that I like to be entertaining. Serious performance might not be for me, but I like lighter fare, and I love, love, love to make people laugh. I also like to be the center of attention. I've learned to keep that beast under control, but perhaps it would be good for me to find an occupation where I don't have to -- someplace where I can be a big fat free-range ham. These were some of my thoughts today.
And finally, some funny signs, seen by me and people I know.
An advertisement for teeth-whitening strips on the mirror in the ladies' locker room at the gym: Isn't it funny how whiter teeth make your thighs look thinner?
Bumper sticker, quoted by my sadistic gym trainer: I had to lose my soul to make room for my sarcasm.
At a store called Sam Cinnamon's, in Portland, ME: On one side of the door, We buy junk, and on the other side of the door, We sell antiques.
Outside a shop in rural Maine: Ho-made donuts.
And finally, an establishment in Alaska: Frank's Bail Bonding and Coffee Cabana.
Good to know it's there.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
My Own Anger at Verizon Scares Me
Our Internet problems have been resolved, but for a few months now our phone line has been statical (I looked it up, and apparently that's the adjective form of static, as opposed to staticky). As the person in charge of bills and utilities in our house, it's my job to look into getting that fixed. I've been putting it off, mostly out of laziness, I guess. I don't use the land line, so the problem isn't in my face. That's my bad. I admit it.
I finally bit the bullet today and called them. It was after 5pm, so I got the routing system. After five minutes on the phone, I am now so filled with rage that I can't work, I can barely think, and I'm wondering what kind of bizarre psychological disorder I have that can possibly cause me to hate Verizon with such an unreasoning, violent hostility. I intended to work until 6 to make up for a long non-work-related conversation I had earlier in the day, but I couldn't do anything but come on this blog and vent.
They make it so hard to take care of problems away from home, which is where I am during the day, because I'm a grown-up and I have a job. This is also when they want you to call.
They want you to conduct all sorts of tests on your own line. Which I can't do from the office, obviously. So I have to go home and put myself through this again, in order to determine if we have to have a guy come out, which we'll have to pay for, because they've tested the line and determined that it's clear. Nothing is ever wrong with the line, even when it's not working.
Maybe it's not laziness on my part. Maybe it's not wanting to have to pay. Or maybe, though my conscious mind had happily forgotten the trauma of late summer, my subconscious remembered how frustrated and angry I was because of this one stupid company. It's consuming. As soon as I heard that woman's recorded voice, I was plunged back into the horror and dysfunction of Verizonland, and I wanted to smash parts of my body into hard objects and scream until she stopped talking and became a person who could help me.
There is something very, very wrong about all this. Some primeval corner of my brain is triggered by these interactions, and I become an angry animal who is no longer capable of understanding anything technical, but is more than capable of chomping on Recording Woman's jugular while she convulses, loses copious amounts of blood and dies, locked in my steel jaws. Not that I've thought about that.
Now the question is whether I should step up and handle this "like a man," do my household job and stop letting my roommates down, and deal with whatever frightening character issue I seem to have dredged up, OR, whether this is obviously too much for me and I should beg one of my roommates to relieve me of the task, because I'm too far gone to be effective, or perhaps just too far gone to interact with Verizon and still hold onto my mental health. I don't know yet. All I know is I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them...
I finally bit the bullet today and called them. It was after 5pm, so I got the routing system. After five minutes on the phone, I am now so filled with rage that I can't work, I can barely think, and I'm wondering what kind of bizarre psychological disorder I have that can possibly cause me to hate Verizon with such an unreasoning, violent hostility. I intended to work until 6 to make up for a long non-work-related conversation I had earlier in the day, but I couldn't do anything but come on this blog and vent.
They make it so hard to take care of problems away from home, which is where I am during the day, because I'm a grown-up and I have a job. This is also when they want you to call.
They want you to conduct all sorts of tests on your own line. Which I can't do from the office, obviously. So I have to go home and put myself through this again, in order to determine if we have to have a guy come out, which we'll have to pay for, because they've tested the line and determined that it's clear. Nothing is ever wrong with the line, even when it's not working.
Maybe it's not laziness on my part. Maybe it's not wanting to have to pay. Or maybe, though my conscious mind had happily forgotten the trauma of late summer, my subconscious remembered how frustrated and angry I was because of this one stupid company. It's consuming. As soon as I heard that woman's recorded voice, I was plunged back into the horror and dysfunction of Verizonland, and I wanted to smash parts of my body into hard objects and scream until she stopped talking and became a person who could help me.
There is something very, very wrong about all this. Some primeval corner of my brain is triggered by these interactions, and I become an angry animal who is no longer capable of understanding anything technical, but is more than capable of chomping on Recording Woman's jugular while she convulses, loses copious amounts of blood and dies, locked in my steel jaws. Not that I've thought about that.
Now the question is whether I should step up and handle this "like a man," do my household job and stop letting my roommates down, and deal with whatever frightening character issue I seem to have dredged up, OR, whether this is obviously too much for me and I should beg one of my roommates to relieve me of the task, because I'm too far gone to be effective, or perhaps just too far gone to interact with Verizon and still hold onto my mental health. I don't know yet. All I know is I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them...
Saturday, January 06, 2007
A rose named "Philbert" would still smell sweet, but probably wouldn't be very popular
I had a conversation yesterday about unfortunate attempts to feminize men's names. I've come across such gems as Nigella (the famous Ms. Lawson) and Hubertina. A lot of women's names are variations on the masculine form. Most of the ones I can think of right now are either German or French -- Carl and Carla, Johann and Johanna, Jaques and Jaqueline, Daniel and Danielle.
But what if you went in the opposite direction? What if you wanted to name a boy after his mother or something? I've begun compiling a list in my head of possibilities. I'd love it if some of you could add to it:
Diano
Elizabert
Wendyn
Jennifred
Kellieson
Betholomew
Penelopete
Annaman
Daphned
Gwendoland
HollybutI'maboy
But what if you went in the opposite direction? What if you wanted to name a boy after his mother or something? I've begun compiling a list in my head of possibilities. I'd love it if some of you could add to it:
Diano
Elizabert
Wendyn
Jennifred
Kellieson
Betholomew
Penelopete
Annaman
Daphned
Gwendoland
HollybutI'maboy
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Crazy Holly's Going-out-of-Legalism Sale: Everything Must Go! (Part 2)
Let's see, we were talking about the conflict between the desire to do something and the desire to enjoy what I do... one option was no fun, the other just seemed stupid... OK, here we go:
There I was, stuck. I had been doing OK keeping the guilt at bay over Christmas vacation, till the day I came back to Boston. Maybe it's because I hadn't done much while I was home (although being lazy had been my plan from the beginning), or having to get back to my regular life, or having to leave family again, but I was bummed and felt guilty. Then, the next morning was church and the sermon was about Jesus' parable of the three servants who were entrusted with varying amounts of money by their master -- were they good stewards, or did they do nothing with what they were given? I didn't want to be a lazy and wicked servant. Crap! So I went back for prayer, as I often do. I gave just a skeleton of the situation -- not happy with current circumstances, feel a need to get moving, but have this legalism problem so not sure what to do. I phrased it in a way that would lead a person to advise action. But the girl wasn't there to advise, she was there to pray, and there's a big fat difference. Prayer requires listening to God. Everything she said had to do with patience, with waiting on God and trusting Him, with focusing on Him and letting Him deal with everything else, with letting Him lead the way and following Him instead of running ahead. It was what I had wanted to hear for a long time, but I had to hear it from someone else; I wasn't going to simply tell myself what I wanted to hear, because that felt... I don't know, like cheating somehow. (I don't yet trust myself when I have a strong preference but am not sure if it's the right thing.) This prayer convinced me that sitting tight for a while was OK. Now my plan, for the time being, is Inaction.
Here are a few things I believe:
It's possible to hear from God, both directly and through other people.
God is more concerned with the condition of our hearts and our relationship with Him than He is with what we do; motives outweigh results.
Unless the Lord builds the house, the workers labor in vain.
Prayer makes a difference.
There is always a godly way to handle a situation, but it's not always the way that appears righteous on the surface.
Sometimes God asks us to do things that seem dumb.
I don't believe in utter passivity. I have a couple metaphors that might help people understand what I'm up to. If Legalism is West and License is East, then I'm heading East. That doesn't mean I'm doing to drop off into the Atlantic; it just means I'm heading that direction in an effort to find the middle. Or maybe it's like straightening a trombone slide (something I know a little about). If it's bent, you can't just push it till it's straight; you have to bend it in the wrong direction until it finds straightness (is that a word?) on its own. So maybe I'll go a little too far in the opposite direction. Right now, I'm nowhere near being in danger of going way too far, and if I spend my time worrying about it, I'll play it much too safe.
I've gotten confirmation that I'm doing the right thing from a couple friends I trust. I don't believe they would be blindly supportive if they thought I was making a bad call. The biggest confirmation for me, though, is my own state of mind: When I think of all I would have to do to construct a more satisfying life for myself, and all the obstacles and rejection and self-discipline and mistakes, it makes me not want to try at all. A few years of failure was enough to cause me to lose all faith in my own ability to make myself happy. But when I think of letting God figure things out and bring goodies my way as He sees fit, then I have hope. I get excited about the future, and am able to enjoy the present. That in itself is a form of happiness.
I don't expect it to be easy to explain to people why I'm not taking the good advice they offer. That's OK. If I'm right and this is all God's idea, He'll come through eventually. Then it will be obvious that He was the one who made it all happen, not me. Most importantly, I'll know I can trust Him, and can rest the weight of my hopes on Him. In the meantime, I'm trusting Him by waiting.
There I was, stuck. I had been doing OK keeping the guilt at bay over Christmas vacation, till the day I came back to Boston. Maybe it's because I hadn't done much while I was home (although being lazy had been my plan from the beginning), or having to get back to my regular life, or having to leave family again, but I was bummed and felt guilty. Then, the next morning was church and the sermon was about Jesus' parable of the three servants who were entrusted with varying amounts of money by their master -- were they good stewards, or did they do nothing with what they were given? I didn't want to be a lazy and wicked servant. Crap! So I went back for prayer, as I often do. I gave just a skeleton of the situation -- not happy with current circumstances, feel a need to get moving, but have this legalism problem so not sure what to do. I phrased it in a way that would lead a person to advise action. But the girl wasn't there to advise, she was there to pray, and there's a big fat difference. Prayer requires listening to God. Everything she said had to do with patience, with waiting on God and trusting Him, with focusing on Him and letting Him deal with everything else, with letting Him lead the way and following Him instead of running ahead. It was what I had wanted to hear for a long time, but I had to hear it from someone else; I wasn't going to simply tell myself what I wanted to hear, because that felt... I don't know, like cheating somehow. (I don't yet trust myself when I have a strong preference but am not sure if it's the right thing.) This prayer convinced me that sitting tight for a while was OK. Now my plan, for the time being, is Inaction.
Here are a few things I believe:
It's possible to hear from God, both directly and through other people.
God is more concerned with the condition of our hearts and our relationship with Him than He is with what we do; motives outweigh results.
Unless the Lord builds the house, the workers labor in vain.
Prayer makes a difference.
There is always a godly way to handle a situation, but it's not always the way that appears righteous on the surface.
Sometimes God asks us to do things that seem dumb.
I don't believe in utter passivity. I have a couple metaphors that might help people understand what I'm up to. If Legalism is West and License is East, then I'm heading East. That doesn't mean I'm doing to drop off into the Atlantic; it just means I'm heading that direction in an effort to find the middle. Or maybe it's like straightening a trombone slide (something I know a little about). If it's bent, you can't just push it till it's straight; you have to bend it in the wrong direction until it finds straightness (is that a word?) on its own. So maybe I'll go a little too far in the opposite direction. Right now, I'm nowhere near being in danger of going way too far, and if I spend my time worrying about it, I'll play it much too safe.
I've gotten confirmation that I'm doing the right thing from a couple friends I trust. I don't believe they would be blindly supportive if they thought I was making a bad call. The biggest confirmation for me, though, is my own state of mind: When I think of all I would have to do to construct a more satisfying life for myself, and all the obstacles and rejection and self-discipline and mistakes, it makes me not want to try at all. A few years of failure was enough to cause me to lose all faith in my own ability to make myself happy. But when I think of letting God figure things out and bring goodies my way as He sees fit, then I have hope. I get excited about the future, and am able to enjoy the present. That in itself is a form of happiness.
I don't expect it to be easy to explain to people why I'm not taking the good advice they offer. That's OK. If I'm right and this is all God's idea, He'll come through eventually. Then it will be obvious that He was the one who made it all happen, not me. Most importantly, I'll know I can trust Him, and can rest the weight of my hopes on Him. In the meantime, I'm trusting Him by waiting.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Crazy Holly's Going-out-of-Legalism Sale: Everything Must Go! (Part 1)
I am undertaking something that will sound like a very, very bad idea to most people: Inaction. I'm not going to stop working or give up brushing my teeth or anything like that. It's inaction for all the bigger things I want -- all that Pursuing Your Dreams stuff. My plan for the time being is to do a big fat Nothing.
You may be wondering why.
I've been dancing around the idea for a while. Well, maybe dancing isn't the right word. More like tug-o-war. On the one side, we have my desire to do big things and see big changes. On the other side, we have my legalism and my icky propensity to dread anything that I feel I have to do. When I was an acitive musician, I didn't like to practice because I had to do it. When I practiced, I didn't like working up pieces for auditions or performances becaues I had to do them. I placed all this pressure on myself, and that made things unpleasant. Now that I'm looking toward other things, I find I feel the same way. I like doing this blog, but feeling an obligation to post almost every day makes me not want to do it. I'd like to find a more creative job, but feeling like I have to be bold and go out there and take the job I want is overwhelming and, again, I don't like thinking about it. I'd like to meet the right guy, but the more I feel responsible for my own social life, the more I wonder what's wrong with me that my efforts (feeble as they may be) aren't working. Obviously, that's no fun.
I wasn't sure how to resolve this tension. Was I just being lazy and fearful? Should I get past my own lack of enthusiasm for the process of pursuing my dreams and just push on doors until one of them opens for me? Am I being too passive, and thus condemning myself to a life of dissatisfaction? Surely no counsellor in the world would tell a person to sit around watching TV and wait for a great job offer, or to stay home in the evenings and wait for the mailman to come whisk you off into the sunset instead of getting out and meeting people. If you want to eat, you have to buy food, cook it, and lift the spoon to your mouth, right?
At the same time, part of me was saying that the answer to the above questions was, against all reason, No. At least, No for me, for now. This is largely because of the whole legalism thing, which I talked about in the last two posts. I feel so responsible for my own success and happiness that I stop trusting God to take care of me, in spite of countless biblical evidence that He takes care of His children. It's also because I still have only a small capacity for joy (to be discussed in later posts). I could get everything I want tomorrow, but that's no guarantee that I'll enjoy it. I've had good things before and been miserable with them. I'm aware of these problems in myself, and have been making a real effort not to give in to them. Part of this process is the whole "practicing sin" thing (one manifestation of this is not posting on this blog as often, which is why I haven't been posting as often as I used to).
But how far do you take it? Eating chocolate for breakfast over Christmas vacation and being slack about blog-posting is harmless enough. But for stuff that matters, shouldn't I be more disciplined and proactive, regardless of how I feel? I could take care of business, as I have in the past, but if I'm not sure of what I want, and I'm not enjoying the process of getting there, wouldn't I just be setting myself up for continured aimlessness and unhappiness? Action simply for its own sake didn't seem smart; I had to have a direction, a purpose, and I didn't have either one.
So there I was, dissatisfied but not really doing anything, and wondering whether I ought to get off my ass and get to work or if I should tackle the issues of legalism and happiness by staying firmly planted on my ass (and perhaps spending more time on my knees, figuratively speaking) . The first option was unfocused and intimidating. The second one seemed stupid and irresponsible, and would leave me wide open to criticism, both from other people and from myself.
This is yet another long one, split up into two parts. I did this one on my lunch break, and I've gotta get back to work now. The other one to follow... not sure when. Soon, I hope, but I'm practicing not putting pressure on myself, as you've just read, so it wouldn't do for me to go making promises.
You may be wondering why.
I've been dancing around the idea for a while. Well, maybe dancing isn't the right word. More like tug-o-war. On the one side, we have my desire to do big things and see big changes. On the other side, we have my legalism and my icky propensity to dread anything that I feel I have to do. When I was an acitive musician, I didn't like to practice because I had to do it. When I practiced, I didn't like working up pieces for auditions or performances becaues I had to do them. I placed all this pressure on myself, and that made things unpleasant. Now that I'm looking toward other things, I find I feel the same way. I like doing this blog, but feeling an obligation to post almost every day makes me not want to do it. I'd like to find a more creative job, but feeling like I have to be bold and go out there and take the job I want is overwhelming and, again, I don't like thinking about it. I'd like to meet the right guy, but the more I feel responsible for my own social life, the more I wonder what's wrong with me that my efforts (feeble as they may be) aren't working. Obviously, that's no fun.
I wasn't sure how to resolve this tension. Was I just being lazy and fearful? Should I get past my own lack of enthusiasm for the process of pursuing my dreams and just push on doors until one of them opens for me? Am I being too passive, and thus condemning myself to a life of dissatisfaction? Surely no counsellor in the world would tell a person to sit around watching TV and wait for a great job offer, or to stay home in the evenings and wait for the mailman to come whisk you off into the sunset instead of getting out and meeting people. If you want to eat, you have to buy food, cook it, and lift the spoon to your mouth, right?
At the same time, part of me was saying that the answer to the above questions was, against all reason, No. At least, No for me, for now. This is largely because of the whole legalism thing, which I talked about in the last two posts. I feel so responsible for my own success and happiness that I stop trusting God to take care of me, in spite of countless biblical evidence that He takes care of His children. It's also because I still have only a small capacity for joy (to be discussed in later posts). I could get everything I want tomorrow, but that's no guarantee that I'll enjoy it. I've had good things before and been miserable with them. I'm aware of these problems in myself, and have been making a real effort not to give in to them. Part of this process is the whole "practicing sin" thing (one manifestation of this is not posting on this blog as often, which is why I haven't been posting as often as I used to).
But how far do you take it? Eating chocolate for breakfast over Christmas vacation and being slack about blog-posting is harmless enough. But for stuff that matters, shouldn't I be more disciplined and proactive, regardless of how I feel? I could take care of business, as I have in the past, but if I'm not sure of what I want, and I'm not enjoying the process of getting there, wouldn't I just be setting myself up for continured aimlessness and unhappiness? Action simply for its own sake didn't seem smart; I had to have a direction, a purpose, and I didn't have either one.
So there I was, dissatisfied but not really doing anything, and wondering whether I ought to get off my ass and get to work or if I should tackle the issues of legalism and happiness by staying firmly planted on my ass (and perhaps spending more time on my knees, figuratively speaking) . The first option was unfocused and intimidating. The second one seemed stupid and irresponsible, and would leave me wide open to criticism, both from other people and from myself.
This is yet another long one, split up into two parts. I did this one on my lunch break, and I've gotta get back to work now. The other one to follow... not sure when. Soon, I hope, but I'm practicing not putting pressure on myself, as you've just read, so it wouldn't do for me to go making promises.
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