A New Kind of Passive/Aggressive

June 7, 2010June 23, 2010 ~ riggledo ~ 1 Comment

This post, is, more than anything else, a test to see if I can work with some restrictions I’m experiencing with my work computer and WordPress. It seems that there’s some sort of technological problem that is over my head between the work computer system and WordPress.com’s website that has disabled many of the functions of my blog, including the Visual Basic editor for composing new posts.

I do not know the first thing about HTML, which is the only option that is available to me. I’m hoping this is a temporary problem but I first became aware of it on Friday. I thought the problem was fixed because when I got home and looked at my blog on my laptop, everything was fine. Now sitting at my computer at work and seeing the problems still exist I look at my blog on my iPhone and see that it looks right there, which means, this is a selective problem I do not know how to fix or even who to talk to about.

So now I want to know, if I write a post in Microsoft Word and copy and paste it into the HTML editor, will I be able to properly post blog entries in spite of the malfunction I’m experiencing.

I had no idea that a computer could be passive/aggressive. Then again, given the company I work for and the people who work there, I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised!

On Donuts and Fluff and Stuff

June 4, 2010 ~ riggledo ~ 2 Comments

Well, I can’t put it off any longer. I’ve procrastinated and procrastinated and put it off and put it off and repeated myself and repeated myself and been just a little bit redundant and then did it again. Long enough! It’s time I wrote a blog post. Only… I’m not sure what to write about.

It seems as if posting only on Fridays is my new thing. I need to get a new, new thing. Only posting on Friday’s isn’t good enough. I was reading some blog posts in my Google reader and I got to this post on Jennsylvania where Jenn Lancaster talks about being out of practice with blogging. It seems funny for her to say that because she is, after all, a very successful, multiple times published writer of books, but I can tell you from my own limited, first-hand knowledge that writing books and writing blog posts is so not the same thing. Anyway, in the posts she says:

I hate when I get out of the habit of writing because it takes such effort to get back into the swing of things. I always tell budding authors that the best way to be a writer is to write; the ability to write is a muscle and it’s got to be worked daily. Presently my writing muscles are flabby and weak, chugging along at two point five miles an hour on a treadmill with no incline.

Worked daily… Gosh, I can’t even seem to manage to work it weekly at this point and that frustrates me because I really do love to write and I want to be able to do it more but finding the time is a real hassle.

There’s another blog I like to read, another blogger who has become a published writer of book. One thing has always stood out to me about his blog. I remember reading in one of his posts once that it takes him 15-20 minutes to write his blog posts, “these things practically write themselves” he said. My blog posts don’t write themselves and they take a lot more than 15 minutes to write. I’m not saying that to draw a comparison between us, either. There is a valid reason behind it, because the truth is, it takes on average two hours to write one of my blog posts. Maybe that’s because I don’t do it daily, or maybe it’s because I don’t know how to be brief or maybe it’s because the things I write about can’t be short and simple, I don’t know. I just know that lately, sometimes when I’ve thought, “maybe I’ll write a blog posts now”, I’ve then looked at the clock, realized it was after 4:00 and remembered my determination not to stay at the office until 7:00 and decided not to write.

I have given some thought, on more than one occasion, to undertaking something called NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month. It’s sponsored by the same people who do the National Novel Writing Month program in November that I abandoned you all for last year, only NaBloPoMo isn’t a specific, designated month… I don’t think. Honestly, I haven’t researched it, I’ve just heard other people talk about it. But really? A post a day for 30 days? I couldn’t possibly commit to that. I barely touch a computer on the week-ends and I don’t have time for writing in the evenings. I’m much to busy with food prep, clothes ironing and vegetating in front of the television!

And besides (or maybe it’s because), I spend all day on the computer at work and a good portion of that time is spent dealing with my own personal interests, it hardly seems worthwhile to think about it when I’m at home.

Things haven’t really changed much since my last post as far as feeling overloaded and not being able to get anything done. I’m frustrated because there is so much I want to accomplish, both professionally and personally and it feels humanly impossible to get much of it done, let alone all of it.

Boy this really isn’t going in the direction I would have liked it to go… I spend too much time on this blog talking about all the things I wish could be, or all the time I do not have. What a bummer. That’s not my intention. I’m not sure why I have such a hard time writing fluffier stuff… I guess I’m just not a fluffy person right now. Maybe some day I will be. Maybe you can stick around and find out?

~~~~~~~~~

Here’s something fluffy, sort of. Today is National Donut Day. No kidding. If you don’t believe me look it up. Then again, if you’re reading this, you’re clearly familiar with the internet and with some level of social media and you must already know that today is National Donut Day. Dunkin Donuts, Krispee Kreme’s and Tim Horton’s are all giving away free donuts today in honor of National Donut Day, or so I read on-line.

Today is also Friday, so it’s Another-Friday-At-Riggledo’s-Job-Where-The-Boss-Always-Brings-In-Donuts-On-Friday Day. It’s really not as exciting as it sounds. And if you’re anything like me, it doesn’t sound very exciting to begin with. Anyway, I walked into the office today, and sure enough, there was the giant pink box filled with sugary, glazed goodness that I try so hard to ignore and pretend isn’t’ there and isn’t calling out to me, only today is National Donut Day and what kind of red-blooded American would I be if I didn’t celebrate a national holiday? Six times. Serioulsy! SIX. TIMES.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go lie down now. The sugar coma is taking over.

More Than You Bargain For

May 28, 2010 ~ riggledo ~ 2 Comments

Forgive me Internet, for I have sinned. It has been eleven days since my last post. In the last eleven days, I’ve been so busy, doing nothing, I can’t even tell you… Except, that’s kind of what I’m here for. To tell you. What I’ve been so busy. Not doing. It’s all very confusing.

In the last few days it’s come to my attention, on two separate occasions that I’m a liar. Well, not a liar, exactly, just not entirely truthful. One person, who barely knows me, but with whom I’m developing a new friendship, and another person who does know me but who I haven’t seen in a long time have each asked me how I’m doing, what’s new, what’s going on in my life. On both occasions, I started to answer them with my standard answer: “Oh, you know, nothing much. Same ole same ole. Just working.”

Before I let the words escape my lips, or my finger tips in one case, though, I stopped myself and thought for a moment about the true answer to those questions. And I thought about something Deb said to me once about how I don’t allow intimacy to happen. I tend to not let people in. So I did. I answered them both honestly… and they both ran away screaming as if their hair was on fire. OK, fine. That isn’t true. But I always fear that is what will happen and I often think that when I do tell the truth they’re secretly thinking, “Oh God, oh God, oh God! Why did I ask???”

Anyway, the truth is there’s so much stuff going on in my life and in my head right now that I’m finding it very difficult to actually accomplish anything. Why is it that when we’ve got things pressing on us, we’d rather just shut down and put it all off until it becomes even more stressful than it already was? Anyone else do that? No? Just me? OK, then! Moving on.

A lot of what’s going on with me just goes back to the age old question of balance, trying to fit it all in and garner some sense of satisfaction and fulfillment out of life.

A few of the staff in my office and I are taking a High Rise Fire Safety Director Certification class. There are enough of us doing it that they send the instructor to us and the class is Tuesday mornings here at my office building. But it is a full fledged Continuing Education course with homework assignments each week. Next Tuesday we have a Mid-Term test. At the end of the class which will be June 29, we have a Final Exam. On June 15 I have a three page term paper due and on June 22 I have to give an oral presentation about it to the class. The instructor keeps telling us that you have to work pretty hard to fail this class, but it’s bringing up a lot of old anxieties about my ability to perform properly in an educational setting. (I’m one of them new fangled, non-traditional learners, who doesn’t always do so well with classroom teaching.) This anxiety is also feeding into my next topic for discussion.

I took the plunge and am officially enrolled in an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) course at the local Community College. It begins on August 23 and goes through late December. This class will be Monday and Wednesday evenings after work, three hours each night, one and half hours of Lecture and one and a half hours of Lab. Michelle’s older sister is going to take the class with me and she’s actually taken it before (she let her certification lapse so she has to take it again) so it’ll be nice to a) have someone in the class that I know and 2) have someone that can help me if I get lost. (Also, she’s eight years older than I am so I know I won’t be the oldest person in the class.)

Before the class starts though, I have to have two separate Tuberculosis (TB) skin tests and the first two of three Hepatitis B vaccination injections. I also have to have taken Standard First Aid (I’m currently certified in Basic First Aid) and CPR for Medical Professionals (currently certified in Basic Adult CPR). I’ve gotten the first TB test and the first Hep B shot (something I never wanted to do) and have to go back on June 18th, for the next round. Fortunately, my health insurance covers the shots and tests and my employer is going to pay for the First Aid/CPR training and my textbooks. For some reason I’m not being charged tuition for the class.

I have a number of relatively small deadlines looming over me with regard to my normally uninteresting, uneventful job. I’m working on a Newsletter for the Emergency Response Program I run and I have a self-imposed deadline of June 10th for it to be done. I have yet to create my contribution to the newsletter because I don’t know how much room there will be for it (It’s a game section). I have begun the layout process and have yet to receive two articles that are supposed to go into it. While June 10th is my deadline, there’s an absolute, drop-dead date of June 15th, because I want to distribute it at a Floor Warden Meeting the morning of the 16th.

I need to make some acquisitions for the Emergency Response Program. They’re not even large acquisitions or tremendously difficult to accomplish, they just take a little effort and I haven’t found the time and the gumption at the same time to make those happen. The High Rise Fire Safety Director class we’re taking is pointing out a number of procedural changes that need to be made in our program and while my manager is in agreement with the need for changes, getting him pinned down to discuss and agree upon the changes and then implement them is another matter.

My Google Reader has been filling up. It’s probably more information than you want to know that I only seem to find time, lately, to read that while I’m on the toilet, but I want to try and keep up with all the blogs I read and finding the time for it has been a bit tough of late. The “good” news is that I’ve been spending more time in said reading position lately, because my knee got infected from my recent trip and I was taking an anti-biotic for it which came with a not so lovely side effect, which the doctor told me would probably happen and just to “muscle through it.” Fortunately, I took the last of that course of anti-biotics today so now I will hopefully start feeling better in that regard.

I allowed the discomfort of my knee to stop me exercising for the last three weeks now. It finally feels better (still a bit of a sore but it doesn’t hurt any longer) and I’m recommitting myself to getting fit starting tomorrow. I’m going to do the Couch to 5K program that I think I’ve mentioned before. I have an iPhone app that makes it really simple and I had already completed the first week of the program when I had my fall. So starting Monday I’m going to start that program from the beginning. The program is nine weeks long so by the first week of August I should be able to run 30 minutes uninterrupted. The rest of the time, I’ve got the pre-prescribed weight lifting program from the Abs Diet program I’m still using. (By the way, if anyone is keeping track, I’m down to 259 pounds – 50 pounds from a year-ish ago.)

Things are a bit chaotic at home too. Because of my intent to be healthy, I am making a point of making food and bringing it with me to work. So everyday, when I leave work, which tends not to be as early as I want it to be, I have a regimine I have to follow when I get home:

Change my clothes
Feed the cat
Clean the kitchen
Prepare food for the following day
Prepare dinner for that night (by now it’s after 8:00 and I shouldn’t be eating so late)
Eat dinner
Iron clothes for the next day

I’m still trying to maintain my determination to put less priority on television, but I have programs piling up in my DVR. Plus there are some shows that need to be watched before Twitter or some other internet outlet spoils them for me. Dancing with the Stars and The Biggest Loser are two such shows and wouldn’t you know, they’re two hour shows that end late (And the DWTS Results Show interferes with The Biggest Loser) Fortunately, they’re both over for the season but they’re going to be back in September and that’s going to be tough, with my class being on Mondays and Wednesdays.

My house is a mess and in desperate need of cleaning. Fortunately, this is a long week-end and, at least in this regard, it’s fortunate that I don’t have plans with Lil’B this week-end so I can get caught up on some of these things. Tomorrow night I’m going with some friends/acquaintances/complete strangers to see Sex And The City 2, and I’ll have to do some grocery shopping this week-end but other than that I have no specific plans.

I’ve been absolutely exhausted lately. Trying to get to bed at a reasonable time, but somehow, it usually ends up being between 11:00 and midnight and then I have to get up “early” for work. That hasn’t been working out terribly well and on Wednesday this week, I was actually later than can be considered acceptable. We have our staff meeting on Wednesdays at 9:30 and I didn’t get to work until about 9:35. Fortunately, K was going to be in late from a dental appointment and the meeting was canceled, but I didn’t know that and there’s no excuse for being that late when I know there’s something happening I need to be around for.

With all the deadlines and pressures I’m feeling I’m finding it difficult to focus on anything and buckle down to get the work done. I have looked at the dashboard for my blog everyday, and everyday, I think, “I need to write something.” But I don’t even try, because I know it will take a while to do and I should be spending that time on some of these other things I’ve outlined, only I manage to pitter the time away doing nothing at all instead and it’s really rather frustrating. I haven’t had time to even look at my book for weeks. I managed to push through the road block I had been stuck with and I’m ready to move forward with the story, but I’m having a hard time finding the time to focus on the task and get the work done without interruptions or distractions. My creativity is being thoroughly stifled and I’m finding that difficult to accept.

And as if that weren’t enough stress in my life, things are getting tough with Mischa. He is hovering right around his 18th birthday. Since I found him abandoned the summer before my senior year in high school, I can’t know exactly how old he was, or when he was born, but the vet then told us he was about 10 weeks old.

Mischa has always been a little bit of a disciplinary/behavioral problem. I frequently had problems with him urinating on carpeting. It was fairly typical territorial marking behavior, I think, but it still happened. I did the best I could to control his opportunities (I learned early on, not to leave blankets, rugs or other fabric items out for him to soil. I did my best to limit his temptation) but it happened. Everywhere I’ve ever lived he has peed on the carpet and all I could do was discipline him and do my best to clean it up. When I was looking for my current apartment, I specifically wanted an un-carpeted apartment. I looked at a place that had ceramic tile floors through-out. I liked the place but it didn’t work out. And then I found my current apartment and it has hard wood floors and I thought it was perfect…

For a long time it was perfect. But, as they say, all good things must end. I had purchased a carpet covered cat tree for him so he’d a have a kitty suitable place to lie. One day he peed on the bottom layer of the cat tree and some of it ran over onto the floor. I did my best to clean it up, but he did it a few more times so I got rid of the cat tree. He kept peeing on the floor, so I disciplined him, scrubbed the floor, used an order neutralizing product on it and pushed a cedar chest into that corner of the room. He peed on the cedar chest and on the floor in front of it. (All of this happens when I’m not around, by the way.)

Finally, I had no choice but to restrict his access. I have a pocket door that separates the kitchen/dinette from the rest of the apartment and his litter pan and bowls were in the dinette already, so when I left the house and when I went to bed at night, I would put him in there and close the door, hoping for the best. Every morning when I got up and every evening when I came home, I opened the door, from which he would shoot like a bolt of lightening and I would grab the broom to sweep all the litter he had scattered around into a pile to clean up… twice a day, every day.

About two and a half weeks ago, he peed in front of the back door, less than two feet from his litter pan. I disciplined him. I cleaned it up. I put down the odor neutralizer. I hoped for the best. And the next time I sprung him, I found the puddle right back where it had been. Every time I released him from the kitchen for ten days I found his puddle of pee at my back door. For the first time in his life, I started to hate him. I couldn’t over-look his poor behavior. I couldn’t make any kind of excuses. I was getting angry at him. I didn’t know what to do and for the first time in my life, I contemplated whether euthanasia was an acceptable solution to this problem. I nipped that thought in the bud right away because as much as I hate what he’s done to my environment and my landlords property, I can not accept that killing him for misbehavior is a solution. But I was stuck.

Finally the last realistic solution came to me and last Friday after work, I bought a cage for him to live in when I’m not home. It’s big enough to hold his litter pan and his bowls with some space between them, though he tends to move the bowls close to the litter pan and then scatter litter over them. Now every day, I come home and have to sweep the litter he still manages to scatter out of the cage into a pile, let him out of the cage and then clean up the cage and bowls before I can feed him dinner. It’s still taking a lot of work for me, and he hates being in the cage, but at least he’s not peeing on the floor anymore.

I’ve been watching him closely to see if he shows signs of being sick. He still get’s around fine. He still can jump up on my lap, when I finally am able to sit down in my chair, without difficulty. He doesn’t seem like there is anything wrong with him. And yet, I have an uneasy feeling. I sense that we’re running out of time. I have thought that before and it turned out to be wrong and maybe this time will be wrong too.

But I feel badly, because in a way… I’m ready for him to go.

True Story

May 17, 2010 ~ riggledo ~ 2 Comments

I received this really special e-mail today. I don’t normally forward or share these things, but sometimes they’re just important enough to pass along.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University.

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee, inspected the elephants foot, and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, peter was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenage son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Cameron were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Peter could not help wondering if this was the same elephant.

Peter summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter’s legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn’t the same ____ing elephant.

This is for anyone who’s ever sent out one of those BS “heart-warming” stories.

Shame

May 12, 2010May 12, 2010 ~ riggledo ~ 1 Comment

This morning, I became the unsuspecting recipient of someone’s significant trust. The person in question placed a fair amount of trust in me, by revealing something about himself which he has not shared with anyone outside of his own family circle and a person who is positioned to help him with the issue he described.

The person in question is not someone I have ever met in person, though I would love to get the opportunity, but he is someone I have gotten to “know” by way of the blogosphere and Twitter. I can understand, from my own experience how it might be easier in a way to reveal information about yourself to someone you do not know in real life. On the other hand, I can also understand how it might be much more intimidating to reveal something so personal and so potentially damaging to a relative stranger. Long before this morning, I made a promise to this person to maintain his anonymity so I am and will continue to be very guarded about what I say.

The information that this person shared with me is something he wished he could undo, something that he would like to take back. He’s working now to fix the problem he created and I’m confident he will be able to do just that. But the exchange we had got me thinking about shame and how we deal with it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not expert and I’m sure there’s a lot to this topic that I don’t even know to say, let alone have the time for here.

Several years ago, I got a DUI. (This is not news to many of you.) I made a bad error in judgment. I made a bad decision that I should have known better than to make but in the moment I didn’t exercise the kind of caution that I should have and I let my guard down and I took part in an activity that proved to be harmful and dangerous to other people. And I paid a very dear price.

My friend did something very similar. His issue wasn’t with drinking, but it was an issue of poor judgment. It was a bad decision, not exercising the caution he should have. He let his guard down and took part in an activity that proved harmful and dangerous to other people. And in his words I heard a lot of shame, embarrassment.

For a long time after my DUI, I was ashamed. I was embarrassed around the few people who knew about it and I went out of my way to make sure no one else found out. Whenever I drove past the site of my arrest my grip on the wheel would clinch and my eyes would squint, tightening around the bridge of my nose. One day I realized, I was holding my breath as I drove by. I was angry at myself for allowing such a thing to happen and I was ashamed. I wasn’t moving forward.

I’m not really sure when it happened – I didn’t have anyone tell me what I needed to know – but one day I realized I had to stop being ashamed. I had to stop the negative feelings that surrounded this terrible thing I had done. It didn’t mean I was going to be proud of myself. It didn’t mean I needed to advertise it to the world, it just meant that I had to stop letting the shame overtake me. One day, I drove by the fateful locale and I looked at the side of the road where months earlier in the wee small hours of the morning I had stood, touching my nose and walking toe to heal, and as I started to tighten my grip and squint my eyes, for just a moment I stepped outside of myself and I looked at what was happening to me… And I issued a command. “STOP”. That was it; just stop. Stop getting worked up. Stop letting yourself be hurt and angry and depressed over it. Stop allowing the shame of your actions over take you. And it worked.

I realized that DUI didn’t define who I was. It didn’t make me a bad person; it just made me a person.

There’s a difference between being proud and not being ashamed. We all have things about which we are not proud, if we were proud of those things there would be something seriously wrong with us. But at the same time, we can not allow ourselves to feel shamed by these things. We can not allow the shame that we are inclined toward to affect us and the rest of our lives. It’s the difference between being ruined by this event and living your life.

I hope these words helped my friend today… I hope, maybe, they help you, too.