Once again I have foot in mouth disease. Over the weekend we bought some chicken breasts thinking that we’d make fried chicken for dinner. When it came time to start neither of us was in the cooking mood so we had Thai take out instead. This morning, when I talked to Michele on the phone from work, she told me that she was improvising with the chicken in the crock-pot for dinner tonight. It sounded fantastic, chicken, tomatoes, herbs, spices, low heat, and hours of simmering.
Without thinking about it I suggested that she hold off on adding the tomato paste until later in the day, that it would thicken better if added just before serving. What she heard was me telling her how to do it. Instead of being completely supportive and open to her initiative, I stepped on her feelings by immediately going to a place of control.
I said I was sorry, but I know that I have hurt her feelings with my careless remark. I know that I am human and that I will make mistakes from time to time. I strive to show her more respect and consideration than anyone else, but in this instance I slipped and now I feel down because I wasn’t considerate of her efforts on our behalf.
One of the big topics we had this weekend was the idea of vulnerability. Each of us has difficulty being vulnerable, as people who should protect and care for us have abused our vulnerabilities in the past. Making a spur-of-the-moment dinner just using her flavor instincts puts Michele in a vulnerable position. Her feelings are a part of the dish; if it is good she will feel wonderful. If it doesn’t turn out the way she wants, her feelings will be bruised. In that vulnerable place where she was creating something wonderful I came crashing through with a thoughtless comment. She was open and exposed and I didn’t take the time to consider that before speaking.
Not that I have done anything egregiously wrong here, I just didn’t consider before I spoke.
I had an incredible weekend. I had tickets for the Peter Gabriel show in Chicago, Thursday, so we left during the day and drove up to Joliet. We had stayed there one night on our honeymoon 5 years ago so we wanted to re-visit it. That afternoon a friend came by and we visited for a while and then my buddy and I headed into town for the show.
PG was awesome as always. I haven’t seen him live in over a decade so this was a real treat. He played for over two hours, played old songs and new, and as always gave an outstanding performance. It was well worth the time and trouble to be there.
Friday we had planned on staying near Chicago for sightseeing or maybe some shopping. However the weather was dreeky, and our room was less then perfect (dirty and not non-smoking) so we headed home a day early. Michele and I had a good discussion on the way about why we had set the weekend up the way we did. Since we only spent one night in Chicagoland it basically meant that she had to spend 8 hours alone in a motel room waiting for me to come back from the concert. If she’d stayed at home she would have been alone longer, but with her things and in her home.
Saturday we talked most of the day. We uncovered and dealt with some issues around needing time alone, time apart, and time together. One of the big new understandings we came to was the difference in our need for alone time, and how we express that need. I also got to a deeper level in my understanding of the emotional legacy my parents left me with. We ended the day with a long hot bath together. It was a fantastic reward for a tough, rewarding emotional day.
Saturday was also the close of my latest attempt to sell the Audi TT by eBay auction. This time, instead of trying to sell the car for the high lease buyout price, I just sold the “right” to assume the lease. This is complicated by the fact that the buyer must be an Illinois resident. Despite having this clearly indicated three times in the auction listing I still had more than a few bids from people outside Illinois. In the end I did get one serious bid from someone in southern Illinois. This meant that I had to deal with giving up this car. Letting go of it is a public acknowledgment that we need to focus our money on bigger financial issues.
I had to face that that there is a high cost to personal integrity. We could keep the car but that would mean not meeting a financial obligation as quickly as possible. It is more important in the long run to pay off our outstanding debt than to have a car that is less than practical. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t extremely difficult to let go of its ownership. Dealing with the inevitable questions will be tough as well.
Sunday was a lazy day spent at home. In the mail Saturday we got our Hawaii Cruise tickets so we spent some time talking about and getting excited about our trip. We picked a couple of excursions but kept most days open so we could just relax. Our goal for this trip is to be as relaxed as possible. By talking about our expectations and desires for the trip mow we are able to give ourselves permission to do as much or as little as we want. This is our trip and we want it to meet our needs. It is going to be awesome.
Check it out.
Several weeks ago I discovered that Peter Gabriel, one of my all time favorite artists was on tour and would be in Chicago. My initial try at getting tickets failed as the show as sold out. Several days later, however, a friend informed that a second show had been added. He was interested in going as well so I ordered two tickets online immediately. Then I asked/told Michele about the show. It was not a good thing. While I knew she didn’t want to go to a concert I still should have asked to include her. Her feelings were hurt by not being asked.
We have worked through the residue left by my poor handling of the tickets. In fact we are both going up to Chicago tomorrow for the show. We are spending a couple of nights and will do some sightseeing and shopping on Friday. She is okay with my going to the show Thursday with my friend. However I am discovering that I am less enthusiastic than I expected about going to the show. It has been at least 10 years since I attended a rock concert and then I remembered it as being less than perfect. Too many people in one place, too much energy to feel really comfortable; a large crowd, some of who are intoxicated or high, all energized by the music can be an uncomfortable experience for me.
What bothers me even more than the crowd is going to the show without Michele. In five plus years of marriage we haven’t done anything like this apart. We both know and understand that this concert is something I want to do and not something she wants to do, but I feel odd going without her. I am very used to turning to her and commenting on the events around us, or to see how she is enjoying whatever event we are attending. Tomorrow night she won’t be at my side. Now I know most couples have their own interests and often participate without their partners. Michele and I aren’t like that. In almost 6 years of living together we have only been apart 2 nights. We both hated each of those nights and I have vowed not to spend a night apart from My Love again. I know that after the show I will return to our motel room and be with her; still going without her feels like a separation. I don’t like it.
We have a long ride in the car tomorrow to get to the city, I will need to talk to her about this and sort out my feelings so that I can be free to enjoy the show. More importantly I won’t carry around with me negative feelings that could potentially grow into something harder to deal with than missing my Sweetheart at a rock concert.
I ran across these error pages as examples of a, er, better way of doing it.
First: gaeb.teattime.com/notfound.html Nice graphics, no more useful than the original 404 message, but nicer to receive.
Second: cold-dead-fish.com/404.asp Direct, and to the point. If you aren’t thick skinned you have no business surfing the ’net anyway.
Finally: mcsquared.com/error1.htm Fantastic. A sense of whimsy and humor. An excellent waste of time, resources, and bandwidth.
We had the perfect meal this evening. A wonderful roast, prepared with carrots, peppers, garlic, red potatoes, and pearl onions. The roast was wonderfully seasoned, moist and flavorful. For dessert there was vanilla ice cream and strawberries with whipped cream.
What made this meal so wonderful, so special was how and why it came about. For several years now Michele has been afflicted with a long term illness that at times has left her incapacitated. A trip to the store was an arduous ordeal. However in recent weeks she has started to feel much better and has far more stamina and energy.
Today she ventured forth to the store on her own. She shopped and brought home everything she needed to prepare our meal. She did all the prep work, cooking and clean up. I am so proud of her courage, her strength and her belief in herself.
Every bite of the meal was fantastic because it was filled with love and it was the result of her unflagging determination to overcome and grow.
I am very proud of my beautiful, courageous, awesome, spunky partner, friend, lover, and wife.
I am struggling with whether or not to start karate again. I worked out for over 8 years, and then 4 years ago walked away. I know now that I left because it was no longer satisfying. The situation wasn’t fulfilling my needs anymore. However, since I didn’t have good closure with it I still feel the urge to put the gi back on and return to active status. This could be an incredible god idea, or a really bad one. I need to spend some more time sorting this out to know for sure.
The Illinois State government is going to change in a big way outwardly this January. A democrat was elected for the first time in years. Due to budget cuts there are massive early retirements happening between now and January 1. The retirements are going to cause ripples as people move around to take advantage of openings. The new administration will cause still more ripples as all the agency heads will be replaced, and then the top staff at each agency will shift. As a consultant I get a front row seat to the show; I only hope that it doesn’t spill over into my section of the audience.
I am thinking of selling my Audi TT again. I tried this in August but since it still has two years to run on the lease the buyout is too high to sell it out right. This time I am planning on selling the right to assume the lease. You have to be an Illinois resident, as the leasing company won’t transfer across state lines due to tax reasons. And there is a total of $740 in fees to be paid. It would be nice to get out of this lease and use the saved $550 each month to pay off the Lexus sooner.
For the first time in weeks I didn’t check all the online auction sites for Apple Powerbooks yesterday. I’ll have to check them all twice today. Ha! Michele and I are very seriously considering switching from Windows and Intel to Mac OS X and PowerPC. She wants to make DVD copies of all her “I Love Lucy” episodes (180 of them), and she feels that the reduced virus threat on Mac will make her feel safer about internet surfing. I like the stability of a Unix based OS, along with the elegance of a world-class user interface. Also the form-factor of the Powerbook just can’t be beat. I think we’ll start the switch in the spring with an eMac for her and then a Powerbook for me.
I’m thinking about paying the nominal fee to moveable type, the content management software that I use for this site. I want to due this for a couple of reasons. First, it is very well written software and it has made my site much easier to maintain. Second, I get free exposure on their site each time I update my blog. I currently average about 12-15 hits per week on my site. I suspect that most of these are search engine bots, and or myself. I would like to have more people see and respond to my postings. It’s no fun exposing yourself in public if no one’s looking.
I finally got around to debugging my moveable type setup. This means that the history link on the navigation panel to your right now works. Eventually I’ll have to dress up the archive page format, but for now I’m happy that everything is available.
Michele and I are taking a week-long cruise around the Hawaiian Islands for Christmas this year. We are flying out to Honolulu a couple of days early so that we’ll have time to recover from the 9-hour flight. After we get back I am taking a couple of days off, including New Year’s Day. My plan is to return to work on Thursday, January 2nd. Michele’s question to me was why? Why not take that Thursday and Friday off as well? So far I am having a hard time coming up with an answer that doesn’t sound like bullshit.
For years I worked as an employee. I had limited time off and had to color within the lines as it were. Now I am self-employed, I still like to color within the lines, but I get to draw the lines too. I think that after years of corporate conditioning I find it hard to cross the boundaries that used to be in place. I feel like a dog whose yard has always been equipped with an invisible fence. I am used to not crossing the line due to repeated conditioning. Even though I’ve moved to a new yard (self-employment) I am very wary of the invisible line I imagine is there.
I could say that I am comfortable with boundaries imposed on me by outside forces, but that wouldn’t be true. I don’t like being restricted arbitrarily. However, I do engage in ducking responsibility when it suits me. Not taking the first two working days of January off absolves me of taking responsibility for setting boundaries for myself that are different than my peers. If I take those two days off I feel as if I am setting myself further apart from my co-workers. Inwardly I have always felt different from my peers, acting differently outwardly is very difficult at times.
During the past couple of years I have started to express the truth of who I am more openly and honestly than ever before. Whereas I used to wear suits and ties to look professional I now wear slacks with suspenders because it is comfortable for me. It was hard at first to be visible different from nearly everyone I saw. I had to work long and hard to overcome my fear of appearing to be different.
I think I am learning an important lesson of being an adult. Instead of looking to others to set boundaries that are acceptable I am learning to trust my own instincts to set limits for myself. Other people are not me, they don’t know what motivates me or how I wish to approach life. Only I can know that, and only I can create situations that are pleasing to me. Whether I take those two days off in January isn’t important. Understanding the reason why I am working or not working is important. Going to work because I think it will look good to others is a lousy reason.
Now that I have identified the reason for wanting to work those two days I need to set that aside and try to find my truth about working or not working those days. This will be difficult, as I have to sort through all my reasons and identify those that are truly mine and those that are imposed upon me from outside. In the end I must be content with my reasons, in the end I must make the decision for myself and not for anyone else.
I just upgraded my home PC from Windows 2000 to Windows XP Professional. From start to finish less than 70 minutes. This was by far the easiest Windows install I have ever done, and I have done more than a few.
My initial PC OS was IBM’s OS 2 version 2.1. We were using at work and I wanted the same thing at home. After Warp came out I upgraded to it and continued to use OS 2 for a time. Eventually I migrated to Windows 3.11 as I was tired of all my Windows applications not working under OS 2.
From Windows 3.11 I moved onto Windows 95, then 98, and eventually Windows 2000 Professional. Along the way I have also experimented with BeOS, QNX, and Linux.
My dream is to rid myself of Windows entirely and move to Mac OS X. However, that will require getting a Macintosh. The Mac of my dreams is a Powerbook G4 which is pricey to say the least. So for now I’ll make due with XP.