Tuesday,
May 7, 2002
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.. flower
©2002 by Jerry, all rights reserved (bit of the scanner accidentally
left in picture ©2002 by LB)
"Attention to health is the
greatest hindrance to life." |
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the limit I have a nine o'clock meeting. A ten o'clock phone conference. During the latter I read a lesson from one of Barnes and Noble's free classes, Getting Things Done. Perhaps I'm putting my own spin on it, but I think that the idea of this class (and the book they are pimping) is to not just make a To Do list but remind yourself why you are doing stuff. What will be the (hopefully positive) outcome? I redo my To Do list with this in mind. I also get the hint that we are supposed to learn how to put aside distractions, give the distraction the value they deserve and move on. This will come in handy later in the day.
SuRu and I have lunch at Mezzaluna Gateway (rejecting Whole Foods, North by Northwest) and I try to explain this newfound self help wisdom. Yep, I need lots of help and it comes from self. Besides, all these self help books are, at the core, sort of the same. So I need to draw on this to write Traveling Light, A Guide to Luggage and Life which is going to be my fantasy (as in never written?) self help book. Or maybe I'll write a novel about someone who has written such a book. I have a small Caesar salad and salmon with risotto and asparagus. It's pretty good.
I have a meeting in the afternoon where I am further convinced that we have too many meetings and too many people managing, advising, overseeing, cajoling, inspiring and too few people doing. Like all companies. I return from this meeting to find a confidential envelope with a printed label with my name on it. Inside is a Pinewood Derby Car kit produced by Boy Scouts of America and a four page set of instructions along with a list of 'team members.' I think I'm busy that day, the day they plan this activity. Why, yes, I am. See it's my anniversary and, um, I think I planned PTO and FFP has planned a day for us together. Why, yes, that's it. In the spirit of my new self-help course, I decide that I should deal with this and be done with it, forget it. I'm not making a car (the memo recommends you gather tools such as a sharp knife, a coping saw, an Xacto knife, a glue gun and take a class and so forth). I like toys as well as the next person. But they are expressions of individuality. Scouting and the Pinewood Derby? Um, aren't a lot of our folks girls? Gay? So, I write an e-mail to my'team' and tell them that if they intend to make a car, fine by me, the kit and instructions are on the shelf in my office by the toys! That's that. I'm done. That's all I'm doing with that. Other than telling you, my readers, about it.
I work on stuff. I really do. I have some things to handle over e-mail that go exceedingly well. I think anyway. So I delude myself. I have to participate in a meeting tomorrow where I need to present. In the spirit of my new self help course, I examine my goals and, based on that, toss off a couple of slides that (1) reveal my confusion; and (2) show that the standard is far, far away from helping solve the problem I'm facing.
I talk to my dad. Mother is having a bad day. He hasn't been able to get in touch with the doctor's office to see if she is supposed to fast for this test. I was going to go over there but he says she's asleep and he was about to take a nap. So I go home to go to the club and work out with FFP.
I do twenty minutes on the bicycle while reading a The New Yorker article about the use of paper in the work place. I do a couple of arm and shoulder machines.
We stop at the grocery store for grated cheese and end up also getting a bag of spinach, some spinach salad dressing and a couple of Mother's Day cards. The guy in front of us in line is buying Hostess cakes, chocolate milk, a four-pack of that Starbucks Coffee/Milk drink and a Mother's Day card. I should make my mom a card but in case I don't have time.... When I get home she has called, my mom. Why didn't I come by the message says and she wants to tell me something. I call. She hurts, she says. That's what she wanted to tell me, I guess, because she can't think of anything else. I tell her Dad said she was sleeping. "No, I haven't been able to sleep. I hope I can sleep tonight." She frets that they won't 'tell her anything' after the test tomorrow. (This cat scan is to see if the thing casting a shadow in her lung is growing. They will, I'm sure, tell her if it is.) I tell her that it will tell us if that might be causing her pain, that then we will go to PT and they can evaluate her back pain, maybe it's arthritis, there may even be a drug to help with that. She seems incredulous that it could be her back. Why, she is having trouble with her lung. Her chest hurts. Why would I say it's her back? Why, indeed? Because she complained of pain there and has been putting a heating pad on it? That's why. Sigh. I'm afraid we are consuming medical tests to no avail. I'm afraid there is something wrong with her we aren't finding. I'm afraid she's losing touch with herself. My dad is such a trooper. But he's confused and tired. Who wouldn't be? I tell her I'm sorry she hurts and that we are going to work through it. "I'm afraid I won't get to go anywhere," she says. (We had tentatively planned a trip to Denver in June. Dad and I used to plan trips to effect miraculous recoveries from her.) "You
have to get well," I say.
At home I eat some spinach salad and leftover pasta and drink a Dr. Pepper. I read the papers and work a couple of crossword puzzles. I have a huge pile of papers to read but I also have a huge pile that I need to put in sacks for recycling. It's not like I never read them. Sometimes I'm late getting the news, but sometimes I get it on TV or NPR if I'm not listening to tapes in my car. Sometimes while I'm still half asleep FFP comes in and tells me the headlines. ("Betty Griffith dropped out of the race," FFP said this morning.) I heard about the assassination of that Dutch guy on NPR and also heard that Don't Be Cruel and Great Balls of Fire songwriter Otis Blackwell died on NPR. I didn't know he existed until he died, of course.
I have lots to do before I go to San Diego on Sunday. Sometimes I wonder if I'll remember this moment and this unfinished business in ten years. Then I realize, of course, that I won't. But there will be a pattern or what I accomplished or didn't and that will be there somewhere. It will mean something as a whole, won't it?
Why do I do this? Why do I spend thirty minutes (more? less?) every morning drinking coffee and tossing words in this journal. Several reasons, I think: (1) it gives me a sense of control because I decide what the rules are but then I follow them and feel like I've achieved something; (2) it gives me a place to vent frustration at a world gone mad (and me with it); (3) it makes me face myself...a fat, middle-aged woman who is what she eats; (4) later, when I forget what the heck I've done, it gives me a reference that is easily accessible. It certainly isn't for the readers. FFP reads sometimes and I've given the secret access to six or seven others including one of my nieces. Who has the time to read this? I barely have time to proofread it. I lose track of the other online journals myself. It isn't hard to find one's way here by accident but it's not too likely. No. I'm talking to myself here. You are eavesdropping! (I always feel like I'm sneaking into someone's house when I read their journals online.)
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180
JUST
TYPING