| Travel doesn't always mean changing locations physically but mentally |
[Oct. 27th, 2006|02:25 pm] |
Free Will Astrology, Pisces Horoscope for week of October 26, 2006
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness," wrote Mark Twain. I'd add that it also tends to dissolve dogmas, break bad habits, and flush away sterile theories that haven't been tested by actual experience. These are all blessings I wish for you right now, Pisces. I hope that as you wander free of your familiar haunts, you'll have your mind completely blown, get shocked out of your limiting beliefs about yourself, and be so electrified by the world's beauty that you pretty much fall in love with everything and everyone. Halloween costume suggestion: a tourist, nomad, sherpa guide, shaman, Ferdinand Magellan, Sacagawea, Amelia Earhart.
I found this very timely. I just this week accepted a job offer from a publisher I'd been associated with for two years. As some of you know, I've been looking for a staff job for a long time, to leave the world of freelancing. This isn't a matter of taking any job offered--it's a matter of being offered THE position I've wanted and finally feel I deserve (whether or not I've deserved it all along is irrelevant--I feel it now).
So what does this have to do with travel? It's not just physical. It's traveling a path in my psyche, understanding what I want, what I need, and what I can and cannot hope to achieve. That hope has increased dramatically this year, thanks in great part to friends like Mike, Josh, Michele, Wes, and Theresa (and others in that incredible organization I shall not name because I'm paranoid about being found out in the "other" world). Not just the advice and the shoulders to cry on when I needed them but being role models for me, a scared little one coming to understand a kinky side of myself and embracing it. It's not entirely 100% acceptance of myself, I'm afraid, but I'm working on it.
This year has been one helluva trip for me, on a personal as well as professional level.
Most important, I have acknowledged that to myself as well as others.
Thanks to those of you who've helped the journey! |
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| I tried not to cry today, but did |
[Sep. 11th, 2006|03:12 pm] |
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I've been doing all I could to deal with today. This year is worse than others for many reasons, only some of which I understand. Some years, numbers, are more concrete in a funny way. It's been a half decade. I think when I think in terms like that it's worse. WQXR is playing gentle classical music all day without commercials and that's helping. Unfortunately I'm at the library and school has let out. I should have brought my Walkman. I started to cry when I read Michele's story about Wes. I know how scary the "What if's" can be. I avoid asking people about their 9/11 experiences, at the risk of seeming like a voyeur. I was home when it happened, ready to see my sister back to California, the day after our mom's funeral, so my mind and heart were not necessarily in the present. Yes, I experienced 9/11. I’m not saying I was oblivious. No one could be. My mom's house was a block from the LIE overpass so when I drove over, after the Towers had fallen, I could see the skyline and the smoke.
The first thought I had when I heard the first plane hit was, “Damn! Just like when the plane hit the Empire State Building in 1946” (maybe the year was off). My mom always told me that story. Of course, that wasn’t the case. The first thought I had when I realized what HAD happened was…”Thank God Mom didn’t live to see this.” She’d lived through the Depression in Australia, came to the States as a war bride after WWII, lost my dad in 1984 and my eldest brother in 1990. She would have seen the skyline, smelled the…air, heard the stories and the reports and it would have crushed her. Seen the posters in the neighborhood. Every day she walked past our local firehouse on the way to the supermarket and she would have seen the photos of the ones who were missing and the faces of the ones who weren’t and she’d known them all, by sight if not by name. That firehouse had the largest loss of life of any in the city.
It was surreal--the LIE was shut down except for the occasional emergency vehicle. The service road was blocked by barricades and flares. There was one person there in uniform. A woman, maybe police maybe the Army. Some details are fuzzy. The traffic rerouted past our mom's house never seemed to move but I don't recall horns when nothing moved. Again, memories are fuzzy.
I drove to the supermarket and was shocked that so many people were acting as if nothing had happened hours before. And I was somewhat happy that they were going about their lives. Who knows how people are behind closed doors? They put on a strong face for the public. Or try.
When I finally returned to work, I had authors and editors calling from all over the globe, literally, asking how I was. I knew what they meant and I told them I was fine and that I wasn't "here" (in the city) when it happened. didn't always tell them why I was home. One co-worker walked/ran from our office at Madison and 39th to Stuyvesant High School for his daughter and niece. I was home.
I didn't feel as if I deserved their good wishes and sympathy. Yes, it was MY city but so many people experienced it directly. And I didn't lose anyone directly. I knew OF people who were lost--someone who'd worked at my company the year before in manufacturing. Hardly said a word to each other but she was a face to attach to a name. The brother of someone I worked with. A local girl who'd worked in Key Food until she went to work at Cantor Fitzgerald. Today I walked past the corner where flowers were placed for her. Every year, today and her birthday. There's a memorial street sign there.
This is all rambling and I started it with the idea of replying to Michele's post. It became so personal, so "me" that I had to stop. It would have been very selfish. But I had to write it somewhere and here I am. Every summer I start getting depressed in August, remembering my mom's illness and the hospital and everything. Hearing about the 9/11 events and everything just compounds the pain. They'll always be connected but only from one direction--I hear of 9/11 and think of my mom and how I don't have her here anymore. But when I think of her I don't think of 9/11.
I should be spending time researching companies. I'm looking for a job and there are scant few postings for my position. I should seek out more freelance in the meantime but this is too compelling. I love/hate Mike for turning me onto this. Me, blog? Never! So much for that, huh? Well, I can always justify it, as if I should, by saying it's a special day.
These special days I can do without. |
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| The BEST excuse I've heard to get out of jury duty! |
[Aug. 29th, 2006|05:27 pm] |
I'm on jury duty and was out of the room when one person was questioned to be a juror, so I heard this secondhand. I believe it's legitimate because the guy who told me was so annoyed he didn't think of it first!
Forget "I hate everyone" or anything like that, 'cause you know the lawyers see through the b.s. but this one I'm guessing they (a) bit a hole inside their cheeks to keep from laughing and (b) went back to their offices and said, "Folks, we have a winner!"
One potential juror said he could not be a fair juror "because I'm descended from the Incas and in our culture we don't judge anyone." It's not like there are so many Incas around (read: none) that it could be confirmed and if it's a religious conviction, no one can force him to disregard it.
While that may not have been THE reason he wasn't chosen, it's worth a mention. I'm thinking the ultimate would be: "I'm descended from the Aztecs and in our culture we judge everyone else. Everyone is guilty and should be put to death. Evidence? We don't need no stinkin' evidence!" |
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