No, I don't have needy friends (sorry)

I have splendid friends, diverse and supportive people, I guess I had my blog on real hard. (that sounds risque) Anyway...

Do you know what my great friend Laura told me to do today?
She told me to go outside by 10 am, walk around the neighborhood with that second cup of coffee, then start bringing out things from the basement that need to have the cement dust hosed off and left to dry on the lawn all day in the warm breezy sun. Then I snapped some pics for selling things on craigslist, and then I washed, waxed, and detailed my car in the shade, and got the Mother's Day card mailed.

I am still a productive and contributing member of society.

By this time my back was done, and for old times sake I read the NY Times Book Review on the porch swing, and made the French Bulldog bark, laughing at Dave Barry's review of "Send", a primer of email etiquette. These are times I miss calling Linsey at the store and telling her some hot titles to order on my day off. (sigh) So I called her anyway, woke her up from her nap, and she generously chatted with me about her new temp job and all her wild escapades.
We made plans to drink. We bitched about Harry Potter stupidity. We talked some old shop.

She's already surged ahead to the next stage, and there's nothing like a new job and new co-workers and supervisors to make that a daily reality. Or a new season. Winter is history.

I seem to be hovering, and it's a curious feeling. Below me are acres and patches of lives I could choose to live that would depend on new source of income generated, people contacted, places visited. So far this choice hasn't been made, and I am some kind of one-celled organism right now. There are days I feel I'm surging ahead myself, breakthroughs tripping over revelations, long distances covered without one footfall in the material world. Losing my job really stirred up the muck, and allowing sediment to fall and the water to clear makes me hold my breath, how long will this take? Will it ever be clear enough to decide?

Sitting meditation is gentle, easy, low impact. I do it almost everyday. Then there's the observation and mindfulness meditation, the wash & wear, no ironing needed kind, that you get used to doing. No biggie. Pay attention. Okay, got it. The kind I forget about is the vigorous action meditation, when your body is the mind and your critical voice takes a long-overdue break. An entire afternoon can go by, and you've gone light years in your processes, but the chronos hands never moved. Working it out by working it through a task.

The advice my friend gave me this morning was to step out of the brain car and walk for a while, do some necessary tasks that need doing, completing something would be good for me, and network some more with people I know. I've only found one job I've ever had in a classified ad.
Everything else came about by being out there, poking around, talking to people and friends of friends, following up hunches, and being adventurous. I'm closer today than I was yesterday, plus I got a lotta stuff done in the breezy sunshine.

Life Coach 101

Maybe I have needy friends. Maybe I pontificate way too much. Perhaps my vision is 20-20 when I'm butting in on what isn't my business. Or, frankly, I've been a boss a long time too long and I just am used to telling people what to do. And expecting them to do it.

Two different friends today told me I should be a Life Coach. Was this in the paper this morning, a "Living" section article on this topic? And...I didn't initiate either of these calls. They called me. Two separate hours spent on the most beautiful day of 2007 so far, pointing out strengths, offering alternative ways of looking at things, stating the obvious elephant location, brainstorming, firing up, listening, re-framing and redefining...then I spent 3 hours spinning my wheels on craigslist looking for a job. I even finally scanned the retail category, out of open-mindedness and not wanting to miss the perfect yarn store manager's job. My windows were opened wide, my neighbors were out working in their garden, the sun was feeding my tomato starts, and I'm inside flogging Craig for work. Because these two friends marvelled so at my happy demeanor to such an extent that they almost sounded concerned, that I wasn't worried about job-hunting.

Should I be? Is this my elephant? Should I not be happy? I'm a bit confused.

Finding a free on-demand movie I've never seen with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee is enough to make me happy. Walking into the Cup & Saucer and getting a booth makes me happy. I'm pretty easy that way. Having the time to write out a long multi-layered dream over coffee in the morning is true happiness. Perhaps I need a Life Coach. What elephant?

Craigslist has dozens of jobs that sound too much like the job I was relieved to be relieved of.
Out-of-box thinking has me looking at every sub-heading, just to be fair to the process, when even I know it is wasting a lot of time, I'm not a machinist. But look at the starting wage...

So I did this little game today, once I shut down the computer and went outside to pick more weeds, chat with neighbors, and breathe fresh, sun-charged breezes. If I was calling my friend Laura, to bounce ideas off her unemployed, coffee-nated head, what would she tell me?

Well, first, would she answer the phone? (Yes! Now she knows it's ME!)

She'd listen, to see if I was still stuck in the same exact place, or have I moved a smidge or a lot since the last time? How do I sound? Open to suggestions, or needing to vent and rant? Is this about working, or about finding meaning to my life from this point? Should we discuss money?
Any clear insights in the last week or so? Any shifts in priorities lately, like hours desired, days desired, prefered locations, bus or car, any whims to explore? How long before I absolutely have to have income? Am I enjoying my time off?

(She sounds like a great Life Coach. Wow, who knew?)

.......to be continued.........

And I thought I was such a needle-pro

Perusing some of the blogs mentioned on the Craft site, I found a link to Poppalina and this amazing article of needle working madness, (only) twin-bed size says the creator, and I'm struck speechless. Usually giving knitting a pass over the warmer months, I had been assembling some ideas for crochet and cool cotton---which is what you need to make this "baby" blanket. The woman behind this work of art is named Shula, and she's in Australia with her daughter Mym, and she "whipped this up" with leftover cotton yarn from other projects. See her website for more and close up pics of this feat of brilliance. Shula covers more than needle arts, and the first few posts of May cover her mom's suicide many years ago, but she's an amazing artist and mom, covers a lot in her blog, and there's many other voices to read there, too. Don't be shy, zip off down under & be impressed. Now.


I found out today about the Mt. Tabor Art Walk on May 19-20, Saturday and Sunday. It's free, and takes you and your art-loving pals on a great tour of one of the finest nooks of this part of Southeast, and there's more info at Mt. Tabor Art Walk. I picked up a brochure at the new art supply store here on Hawthorne called Muse Art and Design and I'm so glad I can walk to such a well-stocked shop and get lost there. When on the way to Portland Pet Supply for Science Diet for the boys, I get to feed my art freak, too. The shop has lots of art-toys as well as the serious materials, in all price ranges, as well as art supplies for the kiddles and beginners. I needed a table easel, the metal tripod one got lost in one of the moves. Now I have absolutely no excuse to not paint. 'Cause the 'no easel' one was working for me for a while.

There was a great lead on a writing job, "edgy" and "be a personality for us" and "RAW" were repeated a few times...I'm sure that was a whiff of testosterone I caught there...5 to 10 cents a word, oh yeah, "GONZO" was in there many times. I love this whole idea, and am happy Jolie sent it to me, but somehow I only want to do this if it's aimed at women, or at least a broader spectrum of the population than the younger segment of the extreme sports cult. Am I prejudiced? Generalizing? Age-ist? Gyno-centric? Should I be so picky, nookin' per a yob n' all? I mean to ask one of my many celebrity friends who wrote their way to the top while I was slinging a nametag and cashiering, oh the humanity. There was a great conversation I had with a former employee about the difference between just doing your own thing and someone happens to notice and you hit big, OR, you do whatever you think will make you break through the pack, and then do your own thing to greater compensation and glory. Yes, it was Jeff, and it was probably between coats of wite-out on the dashboard geisha's face, but we really knocked this point around a while. We finally came to the conclusion that you should just do your own thing, but sleep with people who will promote you before you break up with them. I really liked that guy. "Yer young, ya got yer health," I'd say to him, "emulate if you must, to learn some technical parameters, but at some point you have to strike out and do your own twisted vision," and he'd snort and say, "Yeah, and wind up living back in the House of Gothic Lesbians again and asking you for my old job back," and that actually did happen. I miss him sometimes.

Trying on yet another template style...if anything looks too weird, please let me know. I had a request that the font size was small for a colored background, so...I love the color block styles, but as in the DK books that became the Google style, the more white space, the easier it is to read. And the pictures have more zing. Ding-a-ding ding.

SE updates

Well, we have to talk about Portland Nursery...

First of all, it's too beautiful for all of the pushiness of lattes in one hand and pulling a cart haphazardly across people's feet in the other. Browser hours need to be early, because when it's busy you have to know exactly what you want, what the Latin name is, where it's placed, where the tomato carts have been rolled to, or you will be gridlocked in rows of carts and coffee sipping oblivious shoppers pulling the staffer assisting them into tiny pieces. Sorry, it had to be said.
My neighbor Steven says we need to cut out over there on a Wednesday afternoon sometime and actually come home with everything we went there for. Cool, coffee's on me.

Another early morning hot item I want to enjoy is the cupping at the SE Belmont Stumptown Annex, where I discovered the amazing variety available, only because the main cafe was packed.
The buzz there is great, and tables are taken early by laptoppers, which is cool with me, I just wish they might share a 4-top, two singles sharing a 4-top, way Euro and better use of resources. Or, let's pop it overhead and do a loft space, even better. I love it there, and we all want to be there at once, not a bad problem for a business to have...

Hot new sk8r place on SE Washington just west of 82nd called "The Office", where a sleepy relic of the 70s used to be, Liberty Natural Products. That stretch of Montavilla is getting very Belmont, now that the theater is restored to showing current 2nd run movies. There is the anchor Lebanese restaurant, and some wi-fi cafes, a paper store, thrifts, and a farmers market.
A few weeks ago I spent over an hour in the Antique Emporium, with the familiar booths of individual merchants and one cashier station, but there's a great variety of antiques, mid-century, reproductions, sleazy kitsch, cutsey kitsch, scruffy furniture, shabby chic, and garage ephemera.

The Hawthorne Beautification plods on, with traffic even worse now with the added lights and one lane merging. Who's idea was this? Someone who lives in SW, obviously. The impact on small businesses here is severe, and everyone has "No Meters on Hawthorne" signs in their store windows. The Bagdad sidewalk side remodel looks great, but this seems to all be going on way too long. I want to have the usual Hawthorne stroll back soon, Spring is here already.

There's nothing like having out of town guests to make you see your town like a tourist, and remind you (me) how great it is living here everyday. The lilacs have lasted a month. Frost is a memory. The roses are almost here. The wisterias are to the gods. I can put on a wool sweater and sit outside with a hot bev in the morning, then by 4 have shorts on and sit on the sunporch with a cold beer. With lots of industrious activity in between, job-hunting, housework, weeding.
You know...

Back with a gentle vengance

I won't go into why, it had to do with Mom-ageddon, pre- & post-, and then the gardening...

Enough with the excuses...

May is my favorite month of the year, and I intend to spend as much of it outdoors as possible. In spite of the two waves of hail we got this afternoon, as well as thunder & lightning, I ran out to see how the tomato starters did, and all was well. Right now it's raining and a beautiful sunny sunset is starting over the West Hills and the last of the hail is melting in a slush pile on top of the scooter tarp out back. Is Spring great or what?

Before anyone thinks I'm going all too Martha these days, I just finished reading "The Intention Experiment" today, uniting quantum physics with laws of attraction, and bioelectromagnetic fields and an awful lot of studies and research in labs all over the US & Europe. It takes off where the author's previous book "The Field" leaves off, and ties in with more science than Abraham likes to get tied up with, but interests me somewhat. I enjoy some science with my spirit, to keep the whole universe as large and limitless as possible. Like my earning potential...

That's funny in itself. Everyone is now ready for me to get back to work. I've tried not to be annoying, or bloatedly gloating, or hanging around too much in any one place too often, but the question has now shifted from "Wow, just relax and take your time," to, "So-uh, what the hell do you do all day?" I have started making notes on Craigslist, Monster, PDX classifieds, and starting the third resume version. I chat up acquaintances for leads, I'm checking into school or at least a summer class, and asking every person I know who works at home how they arranged this situation for themselves. My cell phone arrives tomorrow from UPS. I'm now ready to call "Common Grounds" my home office, 'specially since they started serving Voodoo Donuts. Hoo-wah!

I pored over Danny Gregory's two books, "Everyday Matters" and "The Creative License" on how the dogged NYC adman became a self-taught professional artist and author. I bugged Linsey about her friends who have cool jobs, does she know of anymore cool gigs going on?
I did not buy a new laptop with my severance money.

There was that almost imperceptible burst of realization about a month ago that I had stepped off the career ladder climb. There's writing and painting and projects to do, people to stay close to, trips to make, my body to be kinder to, friends to keep, and the job title just isn't as important as it was. There may be romance to be had, ee-gads!! It feels good to be here, and the steps forward from this place are exciting, it's going to be good.

Spring Smells Like Faded Patchouli

Spring is raising it's sensual eyebrow and scanning the horizon for likely and unprepared victims. That snickering "Bwa-haa" is not me, but the ee-vile seduction call of the husky-voiced
Centaur of Endorphina, and he will be obeyed. (snicker snicker) I can hear his hairy palms and bowed quads rubbing together all the way over here on the Edge of No Man's Land. The heady perfume of warm breezes and the irresistible elixir of Oregon brewed spirits will overpower the staunchest hard-to-get player and crossed-armed hold-out, and then the tango will begin. (Not with the Centaur, that's pretty awkward and he has those hind feet). With your belov-ed, intended, novio o novia, your new lah-vah.

There are new cars overnight in my neighbors' driveways, late night giggling in the hot tub next door, a new doggie at my landlady's door when I come in, a new baby on the way at my other neighbors', a friend who juggles two cross-country, another who's interest in dancing put a rose in her teeth, and now the guy across the street with a second wife. Sheesh. Centaur of Endorphina indeed, and it's only the 6th of March---the crocuses aren't even finished yet, and we are having a few 60 degree sunny days so everyone winds up in bed (or in love, or at the Saturday Market, or standing in front of their closet pulling their hair out)

Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. I mean, given the right circumstances...

Actually, NOW would be a great time to meet someone and have it click, because I'M NOT WORKING. I actually have the time and attention to really get to know a person. And have them get to know me. The unemployed, drifting, check-waiting, mooning artist with two cats and a small apartment who loves her life at 45. Who has champagne in the fridge, a great mind, and nice nails for the first time in over ten years. "What's not to love?"

The forsythia in my neighbor's back yard came out yesterday, and even more so today. The coral blush Camellia and sour red flowering crab apple facing south are hovering over the yellow bristling spikes. Beneath spreads a lustrous Persian carpet of crocuses and iridescent green mosses, with grassy daffodil recruits leaning in and almost ready to shine. The leafless trees don't block any of the restorative blue sky on this warm day, and suddenly three hours had passed on my front porch, and I could feel the sap beneath the house simmering, the old-growth timbers remembering the sun. A handful of crows jeered at the romantic silliness of it all, then ragged away to the north cedar tree where they have a big messy nest. I guess the crow shows up with an impressive bauble but is a suitor of few flowery sentiments. And neither of them do housework.

Whore-Bag of Leisure

It's true---I have osmosed into the lay-about I was terrified of lapsing into---with relish!

Let me do-tell first, before admonishing my losing of ambition, abandoning of work ethic, and submersing into magazines.

I am regularly attending an early morning yoga/pilates class, 3 a week. (there!)
Items are being ticked off the endless TO DO list.
I am reading re-invention books, researching work-at-home stuff online, getting ideas of things to do for money, and staying on the phone to get the Company to finally pay me off. It is taking longer than any of us thought, and more hounding.
The dreaded futon cover project has begun.
My computer update project is now running smoothly, geekgods be praised!!
Almost every sticker signifying personal property brought to company property has been removed from my music and the boxes are all unpacked.

There have also been flashes of insight that don't make the scale of worthy endeavors clunk with significance, but they are gathering around me like fireflies and stay with me, which is a comforting change from life of a month ago. Being permanently distracted was more debilitating than I could ever have imagined, and sometimes a few of those great ideas of months/years back will surface, and I'm happy to be here to notice this time.

Another curious item is how much my tastes have changed in the last 5 years or so, and again, I was way too busy/stressed/tired to notice. I went to Fabric Depot to look around for futon couch cover fabric the other day, and was split into "that was me" choices, and "This is me now" selections. I was there for three hours, which is another way of time-spending I couldn't afford in the old life, mostly to wander and demonstrate to myself the variations in what would have been in the cart before and now. I found some bright pillow cover yardage of three flower patterns for the tropical bedroom quilt, and a natural flax and henna mid-asian paisley pattern for the living room futon couch. I got a sari-patch bag and found rose rope and ribbon to re-do the handles and lining, and pink thread, fuchsia cotton with loud yellow marigolds like India flower leis---pink. Wow.

Maybe it's the yoga---I want to be that willowy Gaiam yoga chick. She looks great in the rose stretchy yoga clothes. Law of Attraction, right? The XLs come in sage, maybe I'll just start there and work to rose. What I love about my gym is the diversity of folks, I'm kinda in the middle of the age & shape spectrum, and we all just do the class, no pontificating. And that rapturous hot tub. Honestly, that's all the Blessed Rapture I need, and I do not ever want to see Richard Richard anywhere near MY Rapture, he can have his own. Bless 'im.

More Whore-Baggage is on the docket, namely a plot to kidnap an unwitting victim (sort-of) and abscond with her to the (gasp) EAST SIDE OF THE RIVER and submit her to endless rounds of shops, eateries, neighborhood funkiness, visiting of ex-colleagues, thrift stores and general mayhem. Maybe even a $2 movie at the Bagdad. Definitely alcohol. And Gregs to laugh at cards. OMG!!! Keeping my sights as ever on the escapades of the Almighty Whore-Bag, I am cranking up the power on the Whore-Baggery Generator, to create the glorious work-from-home life I have glimpsed at rare moments and desire beyond all reason, for myself here in the funky Southeast. There remains a sense of urgency for this, thank god, because I am tired of waiting. For anything. Anymore. It really is my time.