Tag Archives: workaholism

19 October 2016

My life has become about forcing myself to fake the momentum.

By andpantomime

On Monday, I left work early.

I would hope that for most people, that is a good sign. This is the evidence of work filled w/ accomplishments or which creates more freedom to leave than pressure to stay.

But I left on Monday because I was too out-of-sorts to focus & there was too little to focus on, apart from the internal panic of an impending argument w/ my partner, coupled w/ the sudden influx of full-timers & a deficit of vehicles to tackle. I went in @ 11, I clocked out @ 12:57 & there were 6 other members on staff to work on 3 cars (& only 1 tire-balancing machine). The shop gets really backed up when we don’t have 2 working tire-balancers anyway. But I hate leaving early, & more than that I hate having 2 days off in a row, which has been the case for the past 2 weeks. My 2 days off started @ 1 PM on Monday & will last until 1 PM tomorrow.

I have grown accustomed to working 7 days a week. I have arguably worked 7 days a week for 6 years, collectively between 2 jobs while in college & 2 to 3 jobs 2 of the 3 years since I graduated. Immediately after graduating was the only time I worked full-time for 1 company 5 days a week straight, & for some reason I found that immeasurably exhausting & depressing. Since starting @ Costco I have picked up odd jobs, volunteered, played music, seen my friends more often, & created my own work-from-home position for PRiMO.

For a year @ Costco I worked 4 days on, 1 off, 1 on, 1 off, then repeat, & that worked really well for me emotionally & mentally. It is difficult to stay motivated @ PRiMO unless I constantly have Costco looming over my head, threatening to truncate hours I could dedicate to somewhat-creative independent tasks (for pay. Pay is critical; I would be delighted to take a day off just to write my blog or play my keyboard, but I am $30K in debt & none of it is student loans anymore so there’s no deferment plan for me).

The other boon to working 7 days a week is that I am not allowed to sit in my body & really feel it. If that’s my schedule then I have to get up, go to my desk or the shop or my appointments, & power through the borderline-crippling pain I live w/ on a day-to-day basis. For the-almost-3 years spent w/ J, that pain was emotional. I was depressed because he was. Now, for the past 3 months I would say, I am carrying a physical agony that I don’t know how to cope w/ except by polishing off the hydrocodone they gave me when my wisdom teeth came out. I can’t sleep a full night, I wear my stress in my shoulders & neck, my feet & arms & calves are weak & rubbery, & I have a biting headache by midday everyday either because of dehydration or the effect staring @ screens has on my eyes. Every time I walk out of this room unless to go to work,  I eat junk food & self-hate because I desperately desire the dopamine release of a few hundred sugar calories.

The problem w/ the 2nd day off is that I have learned to relax only in tiny increments. I am Napoleon’s micronaps. I am the half-hour-break-ready-to-go-4-more-hours. I am the 5 songs I listen to in the car that get me ready to deal w/ the next building I have to walk into. I start to punish myself for doing nothing after as little as 1 hour, because on my current budget of I go $1500 into the red every 4 weeks. Even when my lawyer is paid off in January, that still leaves me $200-over-budget every month not including food, gas, or healthcare – only the minimum payments on the simplest bills. & the longer I am left to my own devices – no appointments, no plans, no deadlines, no schedules – the more likely I am to lie down in bed & cry & SLEEP because I am the apotheosis of enervation.

& this is why I need to go back to Costco every other day. If I don’t have to, if I am not required to be there, then every 2nd day off in a row it finally actually sets in just how tired & sore I am. How I could be doing laundry, or the dishes, or sending emails, or doing my court-ordered homework, or buying groceries, but ultimately everything feels like consuming & when that feeling consumes me I become paralyzed by pressure.

So I have been @ my computer for almost 6 hours now, & I haven’t done any work or any chores or eaten anything truly nutritive because today nobody needed me to be anywhere, & I have needed to be nowhere or NOTHING for 6 years.

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7 September 2016

Something isn’t clicking anymore & the silence in me is heavy.

By andpantomime

I

can’t

sleep.

Today, I reported for jury duty. Out of 40 people, there were 4 surveys the judge & attorneys found eyebrow-raising enough to interview the jurors who filled them out. I was the only woman singled out for questioning, & when asked if I think I am fit to serve on a jury, I said politely, “Truthfully, your honor, I am very skittish of the legal system right now.”

I went home. Went to work @ my desktop. I gradually binged on everything in the fridge, from tempura-frying tofu to polishing off a block of blueberry chevre. Then I looked over all my court paperwork & realized that, oh boy, I need to sign up for alcohol education classes. They will be 3 months of Saturdays @ 8 AM.

I’m getting sick & tired of not being alone. Which is disheartening, because this time last year I was so sick of being alone that I committed infidelity, joined a band, & wrote a Christian stage play (in reverse order).

The band might be what is keeping me alive in any sane capacity. Hell, I think I have been living off the energy of the band all these 12 months. The trouble is, I need to make things, & perform, & be seen – but court is trying to eat my bank account, succeeding, & work is eating my remaining time so that I can afford to eat Wheat Thins & cereal & Otter Pops & yogurt.

I sat down to work on a song of my own tonight – got not very far. I played my keyboard, & realized that all my melodies are single whole steps apart & not quite compelling. But hey it’s E minor & the violinist may be happy to play all those naturals.

Every day or night that I get to myself, though, is weeks apart from the next. What am I? Am I as extroverted as humanly possible but legitimately exhausted by my retail job? Am I an introvert who prefers to relate to large groups of voyeurs through a veil of symbolism in song before skittering into my car to pick my nose & wish it were winter?

My amazing, beautiful, soulful & dynamic roomie moves in this Saturday. I am honestly excited. I want to put her brain in my gut & process all her thoughts w/ my feelings.

I struggle to do that for myself. I’m a bibliography of lists & account passwords doubled over spitting haikus & vague couplets. I’m a flat character convinced she’s in a round body. I’m a headache & a neckache & always a chiropractic appointment away from release, relief, redemption, recompense.

No matter how little sleep I get, my circadian rhythm thinks there aren’t enough hours in the day. I got up @ 6 today, went to Brighton to have my time spent & my waist leered @, logged 2 hrs on the clock, 2 hrs @ Anchor Education & Counseling, then damned near 6 hrs trying to squeeze the music out of my soul & I’m stuck on an opening line I wrote a month ago about lipstick on pigs & cigarettes (can’t resist assonance).

I think in the end I am just too physically exhausted from always getting home after 10 PM. I no longer drink, so when band practice is over @ 7  & the boys want a brew, I lust to do my laundry before the laundromat closes. I covet the hours before the sun goes down, the magic minutes made for movie-making. I desire to sit on my porch twice a day when the Earth starts & ends its revolution around Apollo’s burning chariot but every single day it seems like Phaeton is @ the wheel & the sun goes crashing out of sight in a blur of heat & truant ambitions.

My throat hurts. My heart hurts. I need a vacation. Not for a wedding this time, Texas travel & fried food – I need a week in a hotel in Manitou Springs, w/ a laptop I don’t yet own & a decent pair of walking shoes. I need to bring every scrap of fabric I can make into a quilt & every instrument I own & a pile of notebooks as tall as my stash of pens end-to-end.

I’m gonna break. Gimme a break.

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31 August 2016

The Creative Imperative

By andpantomime

I don’t want to reproduce.

Sometimes when I state these opinions, people who have children or would like to, feel offense. That is not my intent. So let me propose a disclaimer: I understand that having a family brings most if not all people a great sense of wonder, a newfound fulfillment, & more joy than grief despite the tough years. I understand that, much of the time, you create a lifelong friend & a whole person who can teach you until the day you pass on.

None of that is exactly why I am not doing it, though. Those are reasons, good reasons, others’ reasons. My reasons for abstaining are painless & pragmatic.

I grew up w/ parents who weren’t ready for children because they hadn’t figured out how to love themselves, & thus couldn’t love 1 another. They loved us (truly madly), but they weren’t right mentally, emotionally, or physically. I’ve heard the argument, that “no 1 ever is”, but 1 must deeply wish to create to do it anyway. Right?

I decided growing up that I wanted to create, but not life, & now that I am (arguably?) grown, I have a lot of arguments which I could not have predicted to factor back into the equation. Deciding not to make half-clones has been like algebra, for me, w/ @ least 10 variables.

It used to look like this:

Me / (pregnancy + partner) x career – money x (F G H I J K L M N O P) = The Mountain Goats, “No Children.”

Now I see more. About cesarean sections, breach births, vaginal tearing; about belonging, esteem, self-actualization; about college tuition, global warming, wage stagnation.

& in all the bodies all the other coupling bodies have given life, I’ve never met a human who isn’t climbing Maslow’s Hierarchy.

For reference: Maslow Maslow

People on the whole surpass red, skim orange, secure yellow, score questionable marks in green, & sometimes settle for skipping indigo. Everyone I meet seems stuck in the middle (presumably w/ you if Stealers Wheel is to be believed).

It’s been a while, since I elaborated on it. But when I was 21 I made a 44-yr plan for my life. I don’t think of myself as very talented (except, perhaps, vocally), but I work extremely hard. So when I picked out the careers I desire to have, 1stly there were several, & 2ndly for each there is a huge gap between my abilities & the abilities required to perform it.

From 21 to 30 yrs old: I will pay off my debts.

From 30 to 40: I will be in California, laboring tirelessly to learn, perfect, & be hired for sitcom writing. Probably maintaining my sad day-job @ Costco. But sitcoms will be how I sneakily teach the next generation something. Ethics. Or feminism. Or how healthy relationships happen. I need to figure that out myself, 1st, though.

From 40 to 44: I will obtain my Master’s & PhD, in Film Studies. I’m thinking east coast, maybe the midwest. The University of Iowa has an interdisciplinary program I like well enough. I love narrative. I think it is the most sympathetic pursuit. I think film & television have the most powerful tools to do it beautifully. I went to film school because my imagination didn’t function, & now it is full to bursting, & I will go back until it overflows.

From 44 to 55: I will be a professor of screenwriting. Preferably in Spokane, Washington. At a community college. Where I can go to the Reservation often, or scholarship some of the generation coming out of it. Maybe be present as new stories about neglected populations surface or screen.

From 55 to 57: I’d like to go to the Union Theological Seminary in New York, & find out if I believe in God any longer. Rejuvenate myself & care about others. Not their salvation, but their self-preservation.

From 57 to 65: I will be in Iraq. Helping anyone oppressed become a refugee. Hopefully, the political climate in nearby, developed countries will have changed quite a bit in 32 years, & I can be employed by a church or nonprofit that calls it mission or social work.

& @ 65, perhaps I’ll go “home” to NC. Where there are mountains, & beaches, for whatever I like as an old gray-hair. Maybe return to teaching. Maybe do prison ministry. Maybe write my memoirs. Maybe make movies.

Along my plodding way, I have picked up employment, resources, achievement, respect, & decided ages ago to dive headfirst into problem-solving & tolerance (the lukewarm opposite of prejudice). Some days, I’m the incarnate Serenity Prayer.  Others, I don’t get enough food/water/sleep.

Trauma can be passed on in your genetic code.

Sometimes, people hear that I want to write sitcoms & they ask, “Why not now?” & the answer is, because I’m not ready, & I am rooting myself as part of the process of getting ready. I just got my diagnosis 6 months ago. I’m not wise or capable enough to impart the lessons I value, & under the crushing debts I’ve acquired, I can’t create something so time-intensive as a screenplay. For now, I’m just happily alive. I want to make music.

Sometimes, I tell people I won’t have children & they say, “That will change.” & I don’t have a succinct response to their assumption. I don’t have a shortcut to spilling out my 44-yr plan, how I believe it will be my contribution to the future I won’t live through, how certain I am I’ll need to work extremely hard the rest of my life to make my brain organized enough to sharpen my skills adroitly enough to give away my heart clearly enough to impact minds on a grand enough scale. How I believe that a new human life will fog up my head, & leave me less time to climb Maslow’s Pyramid.

Because I’m so worried – too worried – about any life that depends on me discovering how to climb it themselves. How I know –

know

that I won’t feel healthy until I’ve passed my mile markers: television, graduate school, tenure, seminary, travel.

Many have children when they surmount indigo. It is how they transmogrify the creative imperative.

Me?

I need my whole life to do that.

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19 August 2016

Rewriting a revised autobiography.

By andpantomime

Every 3 to 5 years, I update my “About Me” on Facebook.

Tomorrow, I turn 25.

Here is the version of myself I felt was most true at the age of 20, before I used ampersands & @ signs:

If you’re trying to pitch me your heart, just try some Weakerthans lyrics in the introduction, “Do you remember what you said in your blog?” as a qualifying question, and “Will you be my girlfriend?” in the close.

I think that the whole world makes no sense to us in our given time because God is too big. And I am comforted by the thought that there is no pressure on me to understand the whole world. It is, contradictorily, that comforting lack of pressure that makes me strive to understand you, along with everyone else, and essentially strive to understand the whole world anyway. Call it rebellion or free will, but I’m a fatalist so I feel I have no choice. “I know I shouldn’t waste my time wishing I’d been better designed.”

My name is Megan motherflipping Phelan, I drive haphazardly and I’m a workaholic. I am older than I have a right to be. I want to serve people because, as Motion City Soundtrack would say, “I’m so full of love it deeply sickens me.” Sometimes, my affection for humanity precludes ability to receive God’s agape love. At the intersection of adoring people and worshiping God is a third road less traveled-by; I am inching daily down the path that could, eventually, make me incapable of eros: romance or monogamy. I’m a working-, rather than a work-in progress. I am constantly “pitching myself for leads in other people’s dreams.”

It’s a chemical cocktail that people cannot whip up at will; I do not know how to feel eros anymore. I am, really, a whirlwind of good cheer and hard work and it happens all the time that people are drawn in centripetally. But the force is egocentric, and where I am the center I do not see people as assets, liabilities, or emotional outlets. CS Lewis theorizes, cynically, this about love: “If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe […] The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.” I take his cynicism as an optimal route; I will give my heart to no thing but work and work will not hurt me.

I am a fatalist. I think God is sovereign. I think everything is as it should be. I love women, internationals, chemistry and anthropology, and these are all relevant to Genesis.

It would not be fair of me to boast about adoring people so badly (deeply! instantly!) without addressing my audience in the end. Therefore, I want to concede that I don’t know who you are, reader, so all of you are just “reader” to me. Still, I know we have something in common. Obviously Facebook. You and I maybe studied the same subjects – like theatre, theology, music, film, English writing? Or have had the same jobs – waiting tables, making our rounds at McDonald’s and Sonic and Subway, moving on to a desk job, moving on to a phone job, moving on to photography, moving on to a sales job. Maybe I like Modest Mouse or Wilco as much as you but you have to help me figure it out first. Or maybe, you and I both just compulsively overeat when the food is cheap and abundant. So with all that said, you kind of understand me. I kind of understand you. And if that is established, allow me to talk a little bit about what else I believe is exactly the same about both of us. I think we both are in control of life if we can just control our outlook.

How many aphorisms does it take to get to the center of an attitude problem? Eh, three or four. But how many years does it take? Well, it has taken me about a decade.

I grew up with a dad in the military, so we moved all over the place in usually as little as three-year increments. The last significant move I made was from North Carolina to Texas, and I have to say: I felt, for the first time, eros for someone there. So, naturally, I was bitter about Texas and the weather and how big everything is and how I would need to make new friends for the umpteenth time and leave behind a boyfriend for the first time. But, upon arriving in this state (where the weather is still too hot, by the way – my opinion on that has not changed), I met just enough smiling people, mixed with the right amount of academic and extracurricular opportunity, that in a year my whole mood flipped. I can’t tell you with surety that I consciously decided to get along with everyone I met, but as soon as I realized how easy it is to compliment people, and ask them about themselves, and share a little time and space (whatever I have to spare), that was when I got seriously open-minded.

Now, I work two jobs and am finishing a degree. I have had a few other jobs along the path, a few other boyfriends, a few bands, a few schools, and a few churches. My sense of purpose comes through doggedly reaching out to people and trying to put them in better moods than before – sometimes than ever before. Attitude is everything. Action begets motivation. I have a good attitude, reader, and my motivation is to make people glad that I am hanging around. My actions are greatly based on you.

I believe in delayed gratification. When it comes to how much I work, I can’t see the end in sight, but I know that the end is going to be gratifying and I get frustrated when people try to make me cheat early on. I’m not gonna quit a job, drop a class, miss a day, or avoid an opportunity to hone a skill. I am always, always, always going to avoid you in favor of work if I don’t think you understand how important it is to me. But if you have patience with how hard I want to drive myself, I will have patience with how badly you want to spend my time. It’s like Motion City Soundtrack says, “Check it out – I’m rocking steady to the beat in my head (it goes oh-oh-oh). I know that she’s the only one; I’d rather waste my time with her.” Rock steady to your beat and I’ll waste time with you.

In two years or less I will tell you what I dream for you. In two months or less I will tell you what I believe in you. In two-hundred sentences or less I will tell you what I think of you. In two words or less I will tell you what I want with you: Be happy.

Time to write a new 1.

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7 July 2016

I’ve tried to figure out how many lives I’ve wasted waiting for the perfect time to start.

By andpantomime

Not many of you, if any of you, know this, but I keep a running list of people I need to contact. It’s currently 2 spiral-notebook pages long, has fewer than 5 check-marked persons, & all the names on it are of people w/ whom I had this conversation:
They say: “We should have lunch/grab coffee/get drinks/hang out/visit each other/go out to a party together sometime!”
I say: “Yeah, definitely!” Because I love everybody.
They: “Okay, hit me up whenever you’re free!”
I: *Internally, gulping for air, ignoring the stabbing pain in my heart, quieting the part of my brain that knows the list exists* “Okay! I don’t know what ‘free’ means because I tend to keep pretty busy, you okay w/ scheduling a week/a month/a year/the rest of my life out?”
They: “Yep!”
I:

I hate it. I think it’s pathetic. But, I have to govern my mania, for I am both blessed w/ & burdened by a kind of hopeful social fortitude, which allows me to do things like work retail & high-five everybody & give compliments nonstop & tell people how to pick a good watermelon; & hapless social ineptitude which compels me to compliment, high-five, & offer to go watermelon-shopping w/ EVERYONE I MEET IN ANY ENVIRONMENT RETAIL NOTWITHSTANDING.

There’s a page in a leather-bound notebook that asks, “Did you send letters, birthday cards, or Christmas gifts to 10 people this year?” (Most years – every year, in fact, the answer is no.) It is a list of 10 people I thought, @ some point, I would always want to have in my life, but it changes annually because of that other notebook filled up w/ the names of people to whom I said, “Sure, I’ll call you/text you/join your volunteer organization/come see your performance/have you over to my place soon!”

& I have been this person, this hyper-scheduled, woebegone, friendless friendly person for 11 years now – going on a dozen.

Back in high school, from about 13 to 17 years old, I rabidly enrolled in extracurriculars. For 3 semesters, I would wake @ 5 AM so that my LDS friends could pick me up @ 5:45 & take me to seminary from 6 to 7 in the morning. For 4 semesters, from 7 AM to 9, marching band – I was a section leader some of the time, “quarter master” the rest, which meant I loaded/unloaded the truck full of instruments @ games & concerts. 9 AM to 3 PM, regular classes. For 5 semesters, I competed in the University Interscholastic League, & my competition of choice was Vocabulary: memorizing between 1,000 & 10,000 words, & definitions, & spellings, & spitting them back for sport. I was in theater for 6 straight semesters, plus summer shows, so from 3 to 6 PM, theater rehearsal. Whether I was a supporting actress, the lead, or the stage manager, I was a part. I was in the acapella choir 8 semesters, a section leader (I sang alto 1.5 years, tenor 1 year, & baritone/bass 1.5 years), elected officer, or “riser crew” (I love to pick up heavy things: I used to set up the stages) the whole time. I got home @ 7 PM & squeezed in my homework, all peopled-out for the day. All my weekends were performances, or painting the Blackbox Theater for the next show, or building the  next set (I know how to hang a door!) or technical rehearsals. By the last semester of my senior year, I got a part-time job & the only above-listed line-items I had quit by then were seminary, UIL, & theater – but I did join a garage band & start dating the guitarist, so all the time I wasn’t in class or @ work, I was practicing music for the marching band, the choir, & what was basically a Pixies cover band, or trying desperately to relax w/ Clint.

I think all the extracurriculars were because I wanted to make friends, & because I am a performer @ heart. I wrote my 1st song @ 7 years-old & my 1st solo performance of an original work was @ the assembly commemorating lives lost 9/11/01, when I was 10. I can still sing both of those. They were both horrendous country songs (but I didn’t know any better!) Yet, here it is, 2016, I got outta high school 7 damned years ago, & I don’t keep in touch w/ the Mormons, or the band geeks, or the UIL nerds, or the drama kids, or the choir dorks.

I can sing every note of a love song I put on paper 18 years ago, but I can’t put on paper a note for people I loved when I was 18.

In college, I was arguably more relaxed the 1st year, while I still had the aforementioned boyfriend to hold me still. But by sophomore year I was single & back @ it. Class all hours of the day, then work from 5 to 9 PM (Phonathon – I was the person who calls you & asks you for donations to the university!) By the latter half of sophomore year it was class, church 1 or 2 nights a week where I ran all the media (mostly slideshows, but I did learn how to use a Mac!) & set up all the equipment for the band, then Phonathon 3 or 4 nights – extended shifts because I was promoted to supervisor – then I worked @ a photography studio on the weekends. By senior year, it was class + Phonathon weeknights + working for a marketing firm in Dallas on the weekends + a wonderful folk rock band that let me sing & asked me to learn to play bass, called Death in the West, during all my spare time.

I just say yes & yes & yes again until I have no free time, & – again! – I never know who my friends are. That church, for example, was jam-packed w/ loving people & always had several events a week for me to attend & socialize thereat, & trips to take where I spent a week in west Texas building an orphanage or in Bellingham, Washington discovering that I don’t believe in Hell. I just desperately craved muscular movement & human interaction. & now, 3 years after graduating, I don’t think anyone I met @ that church, nor that marketing firm, nor that photography studio, nor Phonathon, is in contact w/ me. I’d have to check Facebook.

For 2 years after graduating college, I let my then-partner trap me in my house for his fear of spending money. I would go to work, then go home to him. He would have cooked, we would watch scads upon scads of television which makes me enormously depressed, & then we would go to sleep. Occasionally, sex. But mostly, no sex.

I finally cracked about a year & a half ago, revved my engine, & burned rubber out of his driveway by finding anything else to do w/ my time. I got a job @ Costco. I started working from home as the Marketing Coordinator @ PRiMO Specialty Foods. I joined a book club. I started sponsoring a child in the Philippines. I wrote, produced, & directed my play @ the Crossroads. I agreed to join a band (we’re so good! We’re called Break the Joke & you should hear us). I joined a nonprofit (they made me board president…dear Lord why). & now, I’m starting to see a pattern I fear.

On Saturday & Sunday, I work @ 11:30 AM. On Saturday, after work, I am ready to collapse, but everyone else is usually ready to go out & party. Sometimes I party, or perform. On Sunday, after work, band practice or book club.

On Mondays, PRiMO from 11 to 3, Costco from 3:30 to 10 (those God-forsaken 11 hour days). Working from home has its advantages though, because I can leave for an appointment, or pack my lunch for the coming week, or make a couple phone calls if I need, & listen to the current book-club-book. Every single second that I am not glued to my computer prospecting for PRiMO, though, gives me enormous monetary anxiety, & I often begrudge people who come into my room or call me on the phone during those hours (or ever) because they probably don’t know how it feels to have a marketing brain that shuts down @ sundown, switching itself from business to creative when it sees the fucking moon & wants to jump over it.

On Tuesdays, band practice @ 5, immediately preceded by my efforts to be a caring partner in my new relationship, immediately succeeded by my efforts to be a caring partner in my new relationship (Tuesdays, actually, are nice).

On Wednesdays, PRiMO from 11 to 3 (theoretically), but often something else like the doctor/the dentist/the chiropractor/the car/some beleaguered friend who wants to know I still love them, comes up. Followed by Costco, 3:30 to 10. It isn’t a wonder I take my breaks alone, & feel particularly pissy if someone wants to chat while I have those precious 15-to-30 minutes solo. I’m trying to eat, while setting up my plans for the week, while checking to see what bills are due, while responding to a half-dozen emails/texts/Facebook messages, while listening to or reading the current book-club-book, while trying to rehydrate, while hitting my vaporizer like there’s no tomorrow because everybody gives me the heebie-jeebies & I need nicotine & GO. AWAY.

On Thursdays, I have therapy @ 4 PM. I also try to make up for lost PRiMO time, anywhere from 11 to 3. OFTEN, something ELSE, like my laundry/my lawyer/my destitute finances/my depleted fridge/some other belabored needs, comes up, & I gotta come unglued from the computer.

Barring all of that, Thursday also usually marks my 7th day w/o a full night’s rest, because I suffer from horrific insomnia, so I often sleep through the morning, wake up, eat everything in my house, & then it’s time for therapy where I can tell the shrink “Yes, I binged today, or last night, & my bulimia is acting up.” Some Thursdays, I don’t sleep in, because of an appointment or a lunch date. I hate scheduling those things between 11 & 3. You see, I know myself well enough to recognize that I am never productive for PRiMO after 6 PM, so when it comes to the compulsive “Yes, let’s talk/Skype/meet!”, I usually try to get people to plan that for a Thursday night. There have been times when I have Thursday nights booked up 2 months out. This is convenient since there is always a play to go see, or dinner to go eat (even though I’ve already packed my day full of calories), or coffee to go drink & many people have Thursday nights free. Yet, sometimes I’m too damned tired or broke to hang out w/ them.

On Fridays, I try to make up for lost PRiMO time anywhere from 11 to 3, but when the nonprofit is in full-swing again I will be in a frenzy applying for grants, & I’ve tried to set aside Friday mornings for that. Followed by Costco, 3:30 to 10.

Add to this pile the results of my recent interactions w/ the law & the shiny $10,000 I put on credit cards for these organizations which also require hours of my time: community service, anger management classes, random urine analyses, domestic violence courses online, & 1 very very sad Mothers Against Drunk Driving victim impact panel, & yes, obviously, I am drowning. & no, for Christ’s sake, I don’t want to go to your church, or have some water-turned-to-wine.

Because if I did, my car wouldn’t start. My car wouldn’t start, my band wouldn’t play, my jobs wouldn’t pay, & my charity would lack heart.

Tuesdays are actually nice though.

Sleep

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8 July 2015

A tiny man would tell a little joke and get a tiny laugh from all the folks.

By andpantomime

I’ve always been attracted to people who seem happy. But as I age, I feel more and more that happiness is fleeting. Although people who are funny & charismatic are not intentionally flaunting their joy, I have come to my theories about those people who are boisterous like me. As I let darkness in & out in little bursts all day, they probably do too, in more ways than I can imagine.

In other words, the people I’ve always wanted to be like have seemed “happy” strictly from my point of view. Laughers, jokers, talkers. But they, too often, have had a superficiality, accompanied by a depth of anger & sadness & urgency & anxiety (I also call this a likeness to myself).

In two dozen years I have made next to no lasting friendships. But I do run into the above type of person a lot, & usually get along w/ them rather quickly. But easy come, easy go, & as soon as I move on or move away, I struggle to keep my attention on those seemingly exuberant folks.

Others, however; have had a different trait, along with a good nature: they’re good different. I have met people who have a low-humming but presiding stillness to their comportment. They don’t always laugh, always joke, always talk. They’re quiet. And they’re calm.

This is the kind of person my partner is. Good different. Rather than fronting a friendly face, he is reserved & reasonably approachable. Not outgoing, not off-putting, but quiet. He likes “to be even-keeled”, he tells me. He has happiness – in great supply – but you have to be one of his closest compatriots to see him mimicking an airplane or humming “You Are My Sunshine”. To see him be joyful, I muddy through many minutes of quiet.

I have recently released 2 people (of the 1st kind) from my friendship. This is due to the butting-heads characteristic of my friendships with people who are emotional and vocal like me. I’m not here to say those I fought w/ are bad people, but to say that I do not know how to handle their emotions any more than I know how to handle my own. I have also recently realized that 2 lovely people (of the 2nd kind) & I have drifted way, way apart. They are level-headed & loving. But the loss is due to my pursuit of my intimate relationship w/ the calmest person I know, & the lackluster 1st impression he made on those two lovely people.

It’s not too late to let go of some & grasp tightly to new. I deserve calm w/ my happy. I deserve friends I can learn from.  I have truly missed the boat in terms of making calm people into close friends before now. Now I have a resolution.

I desire for my friends to be people I want to emulate. I spent so much time trying to laugh along w/ everyone who was crunched up on the inside. People get crunched up into someone mean or impulsive (like myself), & then when we aren’t butting heads we merely seem like we’re getting along. Really either one of us is coddling the other all the time. I deserve to choose & pursue friendships w/ people I will never stop looking up to. No more time spent on those who have enough anger & sadness to spill it onto me.

For too long I have thought, “I am the still 1. I am the calm 1. I can be admired.” & whether or not that’s sometimes true, it doesn’t grow me to be surrounded by people I want to coddle guide. I am (hopefully ready) to start pursuing longer-lasting friendships w/ people whose heads are on straight.

Hopefully by doing this, I will learn to quit spilling my anger & sadness onto everyone & also quit trying to please people I’m not meant to get along w/.  I may quit being a laugher, joker, and talker. But for my sanity’s sake. (Thesis: I have spent my whole life learning by negative example – choosing my actions by sidestepping faults I see in the panicked people around me.  I can start to learn by positive example at any given time.)

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28 June 2014

You can write, but you can’t edit

By andpantomime

I hope there is a necessary identity crisis that accompanies one’s graduation from college. Most graduates I know who are close friends have shared their experiences w/ me: the need for a job & the need for pleasure out of that job is, undoubtedly, the most pressing issue.

Compounded by my graduation over a year ago, I have tangled up losing 1 job which I loved, getting into a long-term relationship, moving halfway across the country, & replacing my old job w/ a bizarre one into what is, effectively, a real-life rubberband stress ball (where the rubber bands are my pursuits).

Being happy is a choice I typically have made unconsciously in the past. When I got tons of stimulation, I had fewer crises. When there was always someone else’s problem to deal w/ or somewhere else to go, I felt full to bursting w/ joy because my brain worked on problems at a very specific, steady pace. The cycle of challenge & gratification was a full 7 days, w/ mini-triumphs & obstacles stippled throughout. Think of the routine college affords you: You are presented w/ a problem each week, lectures & homework ensue, & you (hopefully!) spit back your response in the form of an assignment, essay or test after another week or two. Same w/ my college friendships, & my college job. I could go a week or two w/o seeing someone & when we meet again, the issues in their life either had not changed, & I could offer suggestions based on what I knew to be true last time, or else everything was over (I passed the test! I went on that date! I got the job! I quit that job!) & we could tackle the oncoming week w/ renewed fervor. & @ work, especially when I had 2 jobs @ the end of my junior year, something may have gone to hell @ Roadshows or Phonathon but I could come back after a few days’ break & my excitement was usually a reasonable solution.

Now I really need hobbies, though, for the 1st time in my life. Working as a representative for a medical company is a lot like Colin Meloy’s “The Hazards of Love”, except that “the wanting comes in waves” applies to when people want to call me & bitch about something I didn’t know needed to be done, which they now want me to do. It doesn’t foster an environment of order. I can have a day completely organized from 8 to 5 & by noon it will go to hell if any 1 person holds me back long enough to complain about something.

So while the inconsistency is the problem @ Mountain Sleep, the consistency of my home life I find…almost depressing. Justin is here @ home, & he is always a prince. He is agreeable, interesting, helpful, caring, & independent. The worst thing we have to do on a daily basis is decide what to have for dinner & what TV shows to watch afterward. It’s easy, being w/ him, but sometimes I think I’m not really cut out for “easy”.

So what do I do? Well, given that I haven’t made a lot of (read: no) friends here who lean on me for support, & I am not needed by any particular church or organization other than my employer, I pick fights w/ him. The desire in me to actively participate in something, even if it’s an argument, is overwhelming.

The question I’m asking here & the question I hope to answer by the end of the summer is, “How do I get & give healthy attention?” But 1st, I want to set up a dichotomy. Because I like dichotomies – & I think curiosity & wonder is built into my reaction when someone tells me 2 things are opposite. I automatically retort internally, “No, they must exist on a continuum – where is the middle ground?”

The dichotomy I see is 1 of passive attention & active attention.

The 2nd word phrase applies to any time I, as the participant, must make a concerted effort. I will also call it focus. The 1st to when the environment does the work for me. For instance, when I am playing a game or going out to sing karaoke, I’m thrust into a state of passive attention. I am present, & I am attentive because of that fact. If I’m playing Smite w/ my boyfriend or sitting in a crowded bar I can’t resist all the different kinds of stimuli. No matter how quiet I keep while out @ the bar, this experience is exhilarating for me because I keep forming & reforming opinions of those around me, & my brain works @ light speed to put everybody’s actions in boxes. I put people in boxes, try to organize myself into a matching box, & wait for their next move to decide what they or I have done wrong. & it’s fun – nights out include the success of thinking I fit in.

But there are many activities that require my effort in order for me to give them attention, like reading & writing or even watching television. Active attention. I prefer these far less, probably for the same reasons I think I could easily be medicated for ADD. My brain wants to go hundreds of directions all @ once, & upon reaching all those destinations I then want to go another 100.

I have never, for instance, been good @ practicing. I do not play music. I sing because there is no reason, except during a performance, to finish a song – I can exploit 1 line & move on. But in playing bass or guitar, one must play the whole thing & repeat the difficult portions in order to learn it by rote. & most played music is for performance, so if I am not willing to practice it enough to make it performance-ready then I am not truly willing to play the instruments @ all.

The happy middle that I have, between passive attention & active attention, is not necessarily good for my mental & physical health. It’s homeostatic. It’s a weird, extreme joy I get out of getting high & then watching a film or a TV show. Before graduating, I could easily unglue myself from the TV. In fact, I hardly ever had it on & paid attention. Normally I would put on a few episodes of Boston Legal & prance around the house doing laundry & cooking. But now, when I get a tiny bit smoked up I suddenly can’t. Watching some television shows can be downright heavy. I can easily access the deep recesses of my film school vernacular, unearth assumptions & predictions based on verbal & visual cues, & I can enjoy good movies as an academic pursuit. I can threaten to write essays about scenes in The Walking Dead, but I never write them because they will require active attention (focus, I guess) @ a later date.

1 of the top 5 reasons why I want to return to school is so that I can get back into my normal wardrobe of daringly-bright pants, shorts & dresses.  Which is, to me, a lot like saying I want an environment of passive attention again. Work is mostly difficult because I know I need to focus, but some offices are hectic – half a dozen providers & another half-dozen Medical Assistants, w/ patients to boot, kicking around from room to nurses’ station & not able to look @ me like I’m completely enchanting. & if I do focus, it usually reminds them of something they need to complain about, which is disappointing. Nowadays, I’m in the habit of making myself innocuous inside the office, so as soon as I leave people forget my company. I spend a lot of time just trying to pass the time; I will spend extra time in the car reading Reddit before I go into certain offices that make me nervous. After coming home, I scroll through hours of posts on Facebook waiting to see if any attention is thrust upon me. I miss being someone.

The solution to needing to feel like I am someone is probably to pay more active attention. To write more, like this blog. To play more, like when Darian Gore was in my house last week & suggested I get out the guitar for a particularly simple Andrew Jackson Jihad song. Maybe to compose a couple of essays after a particularly riveting album or episode. To be active, to take advantage of the mountains so close to home & hike, camp, climb. To spend less time w/ Justin, miss him, & come back to get something good out of him whenever I’m finished distracting myself.

Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I would most enjoy just hanging out near huge groups of people. Thinking about them but not making myself meaningful for them. I think that would make me happiest fastest. The identity crisis is 1 of finding purpose, & I think sometimes people find that purpose when they start a family. I’m too young for that BS though. I just want to be myself & like what surrounds me.

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13 April 2014

a little boy under a table with cake in his hair stared at the grown-up feet as they danced and swayed

By andpantomime

If there’s anything having a minor in Creative Writing taught me, it’s that formulas must contain values. Which, thinking about it, sounds more like a tenet that algebra or Bachelor’s of Maths & Sciences degrees would tout. But nevertheless, the formula for writing something interesting is often boiled down to 1 of 2 things or both:

1. Theme or value

& 2. Rewriting or revision.

So, given that context (me acknowledging that I am about to do some hack & slash nonfiction here) (& my ability to ask myself why I am writing today), I feel a little sheepish about saying that what I want to write today is about my family.

But quite frankly, even if I feel like writing about any family, may I just begin by saying, “Fuck the nuclear paradigm.” It didn’t work for me & I don’t know who it has worked for (off-hand, that is. Part of posting to Facebook later means that if somebody feels they are the idyllic end-result of monogamous & lifelong pairing resultant in 2 to 3 kids, they can please speak up).

I’ve got three new sisters. Kristin Ward, Katie Ward, & Meagan “Married last name” Mozingo. They’re really stinking beautiful young ladies, (Meagan is a few months my senior), w/ hearts “in the right place” & skinny little waists & lots of things that society likes in girls. I like them. Hell, I love them, & I’m damned sure that since I’ve felt that way since the beginning that maybe they’ve had the sense to like me all along, too.

But I don’t want to knock these girls’ sense of sense, nor my whole-sisters’ (Caitlin “My husband’s name is Jeramy” Cantrell & Shannon Phelan) sense of sense. There is a lot of tension between the million (read: 6) of us girls – 7 if you include Beth, my stepmother. We’ve all got to share my dad.

Growing up, there was only 1 man in a house of 5 individuals. My dad’s a military veteran & he was sometimes detached from me, Caitlin & Shannon, as well as Momma because nobody ever warned him, growing up, that balancing work & children & romantic love would be a task not for the faint-of-heart. I’m a little older now than when once I was 5 & I made Momma promise to me that she & Daddy wouldn’t get divorced. If there’s anything my mother has ever said to me that I would repeat to my children, it is, “We will try not to.”

And with that, being a little older, I now recognize for myself that the balance between work & romantic love is precarious & heavy @ the same time. Imagine yourself picking up a barbell & getting it above your head, only to realize that this feat takes not only bursts of strength but also incredible poise & endurance. Because getting it above your head is 1 thing & holding it there is another. Sometimes I feel myself leaning backwards & forwards, bending but not breaking under the weight of Justin & my job, even though I love both. In any case, it was this balance + the decision to have kids which, I believe, made my parents wonderful parents as well as a terrible husband & wife.

I didn’t start writing today to air out my grievances. I am fairly availed of them, having used all the frustration of a crumbling family to make difficult decisions such as colleges, careers, & Colorado. I’m not saying that I’m someone who knows things. I just want to be someone who sees things. I don’t want to be looked to for answers, unless you’re trying to get a script ordered for a sleep study. But if you need some perspective, objective or subjective, I hope I can provide that to everyone in my family. I have been able to step back for going-on 6 years & just see what is happening.

First, to include her because I’ve hardly mentioned how well my mom is doing, I need to express that she is well, healthy, & happy since the divorce. I’m like her & I like her. My mother has the intelligence I like to think most similar to mine, because of everyone in my family I am most likely to know about what she knows about (What’s that you say? You need a tutor for 7th grade social studies & English? Have I got the girls for you). I am also most likely to have her social awareness-forming habits (Mom is always the diplomat & always dresses like she wants to be respected in public by people who know her & don’t know her alike), & I am most likely to have her temper. Her ability to lose face, her propensity for outbursts & her raw emotionalism @ insults & injury. Mom has found her match in James Burden, a raunchy wrecker-company owner w/ dozens of cows & several dogs & a horse or two. James has been troubled by women before, not sure whom to trust & not sure who’s going to be a complete basketcase, & my mother’s natural gentleness really wore him down over time. Like a waterfall & a mountainside. He loves her so much. It makes my stomach turn like I could cry, to think that Mom was really just a country girl, never wanted the military life, & is most happy whenever her boyfriend lets her drive the tractor.

Dad is giving, imperious, rational, battle-worn, & quite the attention-hound. My dad wants to pour out his bank account & his heart into all 8 women in his life (his mom is added to this number, his 3 biological daughters, 3 stepdaughters, & his wife Beth), but he hates being taken advantage of. When I say imperious, I simply mean that as a girl growing up w/ Kerry Phelan for a father, I was frequently not interested in his loquacious explanations of my wrongdoing & instead simply, naively saw his punishments as heavy-handed. After all, I am the young lady who climbed out the second-story window multiple times growing up because I’d been ordered to write a sentence 100s of times. Typically the sentence was, “I will not call names” or “I will not hit my sisters”, but the neighborhood I climbed out the window into had a registered sex-offender (probable pedophile) living around the corner, & I was 12. I imagine that it’s partly me – as well as Desert Storm & Afghanistan – that have made Daddy battle-worn. But to this day he can still be charmed if you love him – & Beth loves him, gives him attention, asks his opinion & truly desires to be enlightened by his answer, & that is part of why I love their love. He in turn protects her w/ ferocity.

My biological sisters both have SOs I won’t go into, & Meagan is obviously married, but in the interest of fairness since I don’t know much about Russell Mozingo I won’t unbalance the conversation by talking about Jeramy Cantrell & Steven Durdaller. Needless to say I simply adore all the men my sisters have chosen & I hope Caitlin & Shannon are extremely kind to Jeramy & Steven. We Phelan girls can be imperious like our father & injured like our mother, & I desire that none of the 3 of us will show these faces to our husbands/boyfriends so often that we lose the light they see in us. I don’t want any of us to lose the light the others see in us.

Which brings me full-circle to why I feel like writing about family today. Mine has expanded to include the 2 Wards, 3 if you count their brother Jonathan, as well as a Mozingo or 2. I’m excited for Kristin & Katie. My dad is a great father who will love the ever-loving shit out of these girls & I wish I could stand in the garage cheerleading, telling them to love him back for everything that hurts & everything that helps them. I see so much in Beth that I admire & adore, just like w/ my own mom, & I look forward to Caitlin & Shannon really embracing her as time goes on. James does not have kids our age, so if & when he & Momma marry it will not be as much an issue who is “included”. Yet as every holiday starts to include a bigger family (Meagan Mozingo is makin’ a baby in her belly as I type) & every passing year makes my parents a better husband & wife to other people (fingers crossed), I look forward to a certain harmony taking over.

The harmony which I hope for is not only to benefit that melting pot down in Texas which I call my family. It’s a harmony that allows me to enjoy coming home. I have lots of people I could call family. I moved to Colorado just to chase around Chris & Mallory Redmon, because they have no idea how dearly I love & need them. The harmony I hope for is selfish but I’ve felt it before. Years ago dating Clinton Aase meant feeling like his dad wanted me to sing along when the guitar got played, & his mom wanted me to sit around while dinner was being served & – maybe not even talk to her – just give her my respect & appreciation.  Now, I want to bring home Justin Newman & have him feel a part of my family the way I easily feel a part of his. His mother doesn’t hate me for taking her only boy, only child away. Barbara Doerter kinda likes me, which I find amazing assuming Justin tells her how awful I can be. & Robert Newman is sweet & talks slow & just wants me to keep loving Justin to the best of my ability, which makes me adore him too.

Whatever I’m doing the rest of my life, I can’t balance a three-ponged barbell w/o a good example. I don’t look much further than the people who raised me, because I didn’t grow up w/ anyone else. We were military. I had just Caitlin & Shannon, Mom & Dad for always. & from the time that I was 10, I’ve known only a total of 3 people on an intimate basis for several years. 1 is Justin, 1 is Aaron Moore w/ whom I struggle to keep in perfect touch, & 1 is Cain Shannon w/ whom I struggle to keep in constant contact. I don’t ask Aaron & Cain to bear my burdens w/ me now like I did growing up. I do ask Mom & Dad to, & I do ask Justin to, & the only burden I want Caitlin & Shannon to bear w/ me is the 1 of making this family feel like a family.

I don’t like imagining what it would be like to bring home my SO 1 day & have everything go to pieces. But if the situation isn’t homeostatic – if we’re all in an internal state of chaos because it’s Christmas & there are so many of us who have been through so much negativity together – then turmoil will undoubtedly ensue. Turmoil that I go through in Texas I always bring back to Colorado w/ me, & I take it to work too – I take it into doctors’ offices & can barely explain why I’m not paying attention to their patients & why I didn’t bring anything to cheer the medical assistants on as they treat people day in & day out. I don’t know if I’m the only 1 who does this – but I figure if I can take strife 650+ miles home, then the rest of us can take it a few miles for a few days. & it’s unhealthy to be unhappy.

I’m nuts about my family. I also dislike everybody a little bit every once in a while, which is important to say because it’s true. But I don’t dislike anybody any amount more than I dislike fighting. So if I could issue a formal call to arms, next time we all report for military duty, let’s drop our weapons. I love you guys. I think you all have something to offer 1 another if you’re willing to do it.

Sincerely,

-M

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15 January 2014

Are muscles tearing us apart?

By andpantomime

It’s me, it’s just a little bit of me.

I come home every once in a while far less aware of myself. It’s as if I don’t remember what I like to do, therefore I don’t know what I want to do, & simultaneously I do not know what I want to plan for. I don’t have a grasp on the kind of creature I am creating of myself.

There’s a complication. The complication is that I’m aging & changing & I just may not be the person I always hoped people would see.
I have a couple of desires that are not necessarily incongruous w/ Maslow’s hierarchy, but they’re definitely bullshit.
Today at work a referral source called me, asking the name of our doctor and laughing at how reluctantly I answered my phone. (I used to go, “Megan w/ Mountain Sleep!” during work hours, but people from effin’ Texas were calling me & that didn’t make any sense. Today I just said, “This is Megan,” which is almost curt & a bit too indirect for my taste, which probably showed in how shyly I pick up.) After answering her simple question, I jumped outta my car and exclaimed “I love my job! I love being helpful and being needed!”
guysIworkforasleeplab.

Today my new OBGYN asked me what I do. Sheepishly, told her I’m in marketing & I work for a sleep lab. I even awkwardly apologized for the fact that my company doesn’t take the insurance w/ which she’s contracted & that that was what made meeting her more interesting than other doctors. Which is bull, ’cause I’d probably dearly love to get my primary care from some of the badass ladydocs in Castle Rock. Anyway, she kinda smiled (do you know what it looks like when your smile LOOKS like a shrug? She gave me onea’ those.) & probably said, “That’s nice,” or some such dismissive propriety, & I just went back to being concerned w/ my bare feet & bare shins & the papery cloth covering my downstairs ladybits.

I’m just not terribly proud all the time anymore. Which is a change, but I dunno if it’s for the better.

Interacting w/ my family over Christmas, I highly doubt my siblings would christen me “modest” now. I’m definitely self-satisfied because I gotthefuckoutta Texas. I’m definitely proud I work sorta in the medical field, & that my job is essentially to get liked, but I do that job all week waiting for the weekend & then Saturdays are years long. No idea what to do w/ them. No idea what to do w/ myself.

I enjoyed college, I did. I enjoyed the University life & the assignments w/ deadlines & penalties & challenges built-in. Getting people to like me @ work is not nearly as difficult as, like, white-balancing. (Fuck filmmaking, by the way, I hated everything about cameras.) I liked essays & discussions & dating. Dating everyone. Knowing that I could be dated by anybody was kinda exhilarating.

Now I’m not after that again posthaste or anything, I don’t need that single feeling any time soon, but I do want stimulating environments & long talks & arguments arguments arguments. I want to go to seminary. I want to make the money to save the money to take a year or two off work and just…let people tell me what the Bible be all about.

But in this state I’ve been in lately, it’s so much easier to spend money than save it. Toss it away on other people & my car (especially, specifically, for work those two), toss it away on the nights & weekends, toss it away on some big bills & some small bills & some silly loans I took out to have a bachelor’s degree. All those feels & I still want a Master’s & a PHD.

I dunno. Sometimes I just feel like I’m waiting for the next big event in my life, but I’m too content & lackadaisical to pursue anything.

I got this buddy who emails me every few days. Mostly praise. Sometimes links that I swear he stole from my Facebook but he promises he just found while stumbling blindly through the internet. This buddy of mine is 30 & he’s about as in-love as anybody could ever desire to cease being. In a way I admire his teenaged-angst, displaced into a grown man who never kissed a girl & kinda doesn’t understand skirts, but he understands The Great Gatsby & Buttercup Festival & @ least those things make him feel like life is bright & new all the time. The way my life is sometimes bright & new. Maybe the trick for him is that he emails me every single time life is bright & new, but all I do when I feel lovely is get affectionate w/ someone & sing a lot.

So I’m me, still. Just a little bit of me.

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21 July 2013

The Atlantic & Pacific are the very same far away.

By andpantomime

I’m lying down listening to a John K Samson album that Lando gave me over a year ago, & I’m struggling struggling struggling to collect my thoughts. They’re sorta like the flashes of light you see in the corner of your eye when there are car headlights pointing in your window for a split second. They appear very briefly & move very quickly & the temptation to look at them is irresistible, but the ability to gain anything out of the looking is almost nonexistent. So I guess what I should ask myself is, what do I wanna think about?

This morning @ work we had a team-building exercise. Since there was a mass exodus from the office, Courtney’s goal is to get us working as a team as quickly as possible. So Kati, Courtney, Chelsea, John, Brad, & I all wrote down 3 facts about ourselves as well as 2 goals we have for our life. My facts were: I do not wear blue jeans, only colorful pants. I play bass, guitar, & marimba, & I sing. Almost all of my favorite literature is postmodern. My goals were: I want to do mission work in Iraq. I want to teach film in Spokane, Washington @ a community college.

Everybody @ work kind of thinks of me as a do-gooder. I think of myself as a do-gooder. Sometimes I wonder if I’m only motivated by the affirmations that I am an overall positive person.

I’ve kinda always craved fame but not fortune, but there are some nights when I think, “Urgh, I just want enough money that when I am not working I can spend it freely.” So the options here are either work nonstop so I can never go spending money, or make a lotta money & spend wisely. I choose make a lotta money & spend wisely.

But back to this do-gooder thing.

I’ve been to a National Conference for Roadshows, & just from the meet-n’-greet I did not get the impression that aggressive, successful business people in this business are as soft as I am. They do have a hard edge, but I’m also willing to call everything that they do in their offices “tough love”. Because ultimately I’ve also never met a person in this business that I didn’t like for @ least 1 or 2 reasons. & ultimately I haven’t had very many chances to meet that many face-to-face, but networking is always a positive experience.

Megan Phelan, all your work psychojabberbabblejargontalk is very boring for your audience. Back to the point.

I think I’m motivated only by my need for approval, and so there are 2 things for which work allows me to lobby for approval.

1 thing is the positivity – I don’t remember which Dean Koontz book it was, but it was probably Odd Thomas where I first read the phrase “indefatigable optimist.” Either that, or Life Expectancy. & I’ve been waiting every day of my life since then for somebody to say that to me, describing me. My manager does a great job of pointing out how positive I am & I’m addicted to the affirmation.

The other thing that I know motivates me is being called a hard-worker. I think of myself as a hard-worker, but only compared to most people. Compared to most people in this business, I fear that I might not be, but compared to most people on the planet I’m an asskicker. & I need people to tell me that’s true.

See, I don’t think I’m worth a lot by a few measures. I’m not naturally gifted or talented in the things I’d like best to be good @, like songs & music & scripts & movies. So I choose sales & marketing. I can sing but I can’t play instruments well (so I even exaggerate when telling people facts about myself @ work), and voices fade. I am not skinny so I don’t think I’m beautiful & if I were beautiful, beauty fades.

Now what do I really like to do? Is communicate thoughts. I used to think that the words used were of utmost importance, but that is now only true in print & I see that because communicating w/ the masses is about how you say it, not what you say. So w/ all that said, do I think I’m settling? No. I think I’m enabling myself, by working hard, to have the other things I desire: that freedom to write scripts & communicate thoughts.

I wanna run this business in Boulder until I’m 30. I wanna go to California until I’m 40 & write TV shows. I wanna go to North Carolina until I’m 44 & get a doctorate in film. I wanna go to Spokane or Seattle, Washington until I’m 54 & teach media studies. I wanna go to the Union Theological Seminary in New York until I’m 55 & get ordained as a presbyterian minister. I wanna go to Pueblo West, Colorado until I’m 65 & preach in prisons.
The only thing that’s missing is making music…but I am listening to John K Samson right now, & just hearing it makes me happy.

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