Design-a-Debra

I sat down the other day with a blank Word document and typed the words “I Need a Change” at the top. (Watching too much campaign coverage, Debra?) And then I started writing. The words filled the first page and then the second. I ran out of time before I ran out of ideas. Today, I opened that document and it was as if I opened a floodgate. The words just came pouring out, filling even more pages.

As I was driving home tonight, I realized that I had only skimmed the surface. Setting goals related to what I want to do for a living and where I want to live and the people I want to have in my life is one thing. But I really need to figure out who this Debra person is.

There are days when I feel like Life is just another word for school…and I am in the remedial class. Where did all these other people learn how to get it all together? I run into them constantly. They are in my meetings, around town when I run errands, they even pop up on blogs passing off thinly veiled judgment as advice. I meet people everyday who know exactly who they are, where they are going and how long it should take to get there. And I don’t know if I slept through that class or missed the bus or what, but I can’t find any of that in my notes anywhere.

I am very much a planner, a detail-oriented list maker. I have this great hope that I can just assess where I am, where I want to be, and outline the steps I need to take (changes I need to make) to get there. I want a plan. I want to see it all laid out in front of me.

Then I have a conversation with someone who ‘knew me when’, like my mother, who can point back to any number of incidents in my past and use them as predictors of my current behavior. It would seem that I am who I am and this is all I ever can be and there isn’t much I can do about it. I’m sorry but if that is the case, I really see no reason in getting up tomorrow.

What do you think? Do we just grow, by experience and example, into the people we are to be? Or, can we assess where we are and where we want to be and build a plan to get there? How much control do I have in redesigning this Debra?

On the bookshelf, #2008-45

Parched: A Memoir, by Heather King

From the bn.com site:

One woman’s journey to the bottom of the bottle-and back again.

In this moving, emotionally charged, and unflinching look at alcoholism and its effects, lawyer and prominent National Public Radio writer and commentator Heather King describes her twenty-year-long descent into the depths of addiction with wit and candor. King went from a highly functioning alcoholic who managed to maintain her grip on reality to living in the lowest of dive bars, drinking around the clock and barely sustaining an existence. With help from the most unexpected source, King stopped her self-destructive spiral and changed her world for the better. This is the poignant, painfully honest, and inspirational true story of a woman who looked into the abyss, and was able to step back from the edge and reclaim her life on her own terms.

This was a fascinating story but it left me asking “How”? How does a woman, who drinks round the clock, keep a job like waitressing…a job that requires a large amount of dexterity, strength and the ability to communicate effectively? How did this woman, who was drinking so heavily and doing coke and LSD three to four times a week, pass the LSAT, get accepted to and graduate law school, and pass the bar in a single attempt? Sober, coherent, non-hallucinatory people struggle to do that. How does a woman, who had been drinking every day for twenty years, who woke to stale glasses of booze with cockroaches floating in them, who scooped out the cockroaches and drank anyway, go to rehab once and leave sober and competent thirty days later?

Fascinating, but now I want the story behind this one. The real one.

New rule

Yesterday was one of those days. I had meetings all day, all in buildings other than the one that houses my desk. I expected to be running from room to room, building to building, until I finally collapsed into my vehicle for the drive home.

Surprisingly, I had a most welcome twenty minute break around lunchtime and stole out to my vehicle for the lunch I had had the foresight to pack. Peanut butter sandwich, a few pretzel twists, a can of diet root beer…all things that I knew could sit around all morning without worry. I contemplated carrying my lunch inside and eating in the cafeteria but decided against it for two reasons: 1) I needed a break from people (see: introvert) and 2) it was a beautiful day.

I sat in my car, watching colored blobs at one of the busier downtown intersections. Metallic blobs zipped by, trying to make it through on the yellow light…smaller clothed blobs bobbed and weaved across the street, trying not to get hit by the next metallic blob hurling at them from around the corner.

I closed my eyes for several minutes and listened. That car needs new brakes, that one a new muffler. Honking, people talking, a bird chirping from the tree I was parked under. In the corner of my mind, the morning’s meetings started to creep in. Bits of conversation, a tone of voice, even a look started to edge their way into my thoughts. I stomped them out. That was Then. The squealing brakes and whiffs of exhaust and the slight breeze, this is Now.

Stay in the Now.

HIGH: Running into Brian T. on Monday. It is good to see someone from “home” once in a while.

Hopefully it’s like riding a bike…

I have been saying for months that I need a hobby. I need something stress-free to occupy some of the hours I spend fretting about work or Joe Senior Citizen. (And I am looking for a different volunteer opportunity too but that’s a story for another day.)

I would love to be one of those people for whom art is second nature. If I could do anything, I would probably choose to be able to put brush to canvas and create beauty. Alas, I have no such talent. Unfortunately, that ‘no talent’ thing carries over into photography, sculpting, pottery, and everything else in that arena.

So, that’s not my thing. There must be something else, right?

Wesley’s post from a few days ago inspired me to perhaps take another pass at knitting. I learned to knit (and crochet and sew and needlepoint and cross-stitch) when I was a young girl. Our little village had a wonderful older woman who was “Grandma” to the entire town. She loved to teach these kinds of things to the neighborhood girls (and boys, if they would sit still long enough for it) and I learned a lot from her. But have I retained it? *chokes*

Unfortunately, I haven’t picked up a knitting needle (and other than reattaching the occasional loose button, no other type of needle either) since. So at the very least, I expect to be a little rusty. Hopefully, I’m not completely corroded.

Now I just have to get myself to one of our many local craft stores and look at How To books and yarn. Yeah, hold me to it but don’t hold your breath, if you know what I mean. And if I don’t completely freak out from the OMG! TOO.MANY.CHOICES!, I will consider that a huge step in the right direction.

What are your hobbies? (I may need a backup plan!)

A little housekeeping

The woman who cuts my hair had her baby last week! Click here for photos. He is gorgeous, isn’t he? I can’t wait to meet him!

I still have no case for my iPod so I am trying to content myself with just looking at it and petting it occasionally. I haven’t dared to pick it up because I know how I am. Let’s just say, it is much safer just lying there until it gets properly encased. I did go out to the case manufacturer’s website this morning…and they are available now! So let’s hope I see one on my doorstep sometime in the next few days!

I went to the Pekin Farmer’s Market Thursday evening. Did you know that Pekin had a Farmer’s Market? Neither did I. It is on the street just beside the courthouse and was small but nice. The produce looked pretty good and the prices were comparable or better than the Saturday morning Riverfront Market in Peoria. (But Peoria’s market is the best around, in my opinion.) I went for one thing. ONE thing. I wanted more tomatoes. What did I come home with? Eggplant, green pepper, onions, and sweet potatoes. How could I have forgotten tomatoes?! And no, I didn’t make a list because I ONLY WANTED TOMATOES! (I am a complete dork.)

Sunday, I made a Farmer’s Market concoction and I need to write it down so I can remember it (see the tomato debacle above) and make it again. All I did was throw cubes of eggplant, sweet potato, carrot, celery, onion, and some diced garlic in a Dutch oven and cooked it all in a little oil until all the veggies were tender. I also sprinkled in some ground cinnamon and paprika and grated a little fresh nutmeg. So good! And it smelled yummy too. I served it over brown rice. I think that is my favorite kind of cooking…just pulling things out of the pantry and throwing them together and seeing what happens.

Today, I’m actually looking forward to going to work. I have only one meeting (and I’m not leading it so nothing to prepare) and I have a project that I started Friday to finish. I have a good feeling about this! I just may make it happen! Oh shoot…did I just jinx things? (See above: I am a complete dork.)