Why you won't see me in the coming months

Saturday morning we went to the Road Rider parking lot sale, which was a huge waste of time. But, now we now. Unfortunately, time s something I have very little of these days, so that kind of ticked me off.

Where does the time go?

Oh, right, I am getting married. I was not one of those girls who dreamed about her fairytale wedding all her life. In fact, I didn't plan much of anything, and no here we are, with a lot of decisions to be made and work to be done. I got really excited about lot of crafty projects. I was a Girl Scout, and my mom is super crafty, and, um, yeah, I know how to sew, so I feel pretty strongly about wanting to do all these fun crafty things. Plus, art school and all, right? I spent the past few weeks gathering up ideas and starting to formulate ideas. I have a whole schedule of tasks, their dependencies, and a color-coded, sortable, sheer fabulosity, chart for tracking their status.

I got a lot done in the first month or two, and started to feel pretty good about it. I got a lot done on the dress (still lots to go there, but it's something). We made decisions and signed contracts. We were moving and shaking.

Hooray!

Last week I noticed my boss had commited me to earn my PMP by Q3, in a presentation we are making to the muckity-mucks. Yikes! I had an idea that it needed to be done, but seeing the date like that was a little alarming. Plus? When does Q3 end? 3 days after my wedding?

In a way, that is OK because partly I was thinking I should finish before we go on a honeymoon so I do not study on my honeymoon (lame, super lame, and totally something I would do) But there is waaaaay to much preparation that needs to be one to earn this stupid thing. Goodbye to the handmade crafty projects I had envisioned.

The first problem is that I don't even feel that I qualify to take the test. I need to do some serious brainstorming to recall 36 months of non-overlapping projects. (more, if...)

Second problem? I do not know if they will accept my BFA. If not, 36 months turns into a lot more. Then I will definitely not make it.

If I can clear that hurdle, it is just a matter of a few trainings (one is already on the docket, June in Atlanta for three days, but I'll be required to do at least one more) and then a WHOLE LOT of studying. Pages of charts, formulas, the kinds of things I have not been historically good at memorizing. But? I could do it. If I focused on it.

So last week I powered through reading a crash course project management book, recommended to me to read a high-level overview without the PMI jargon and dry reading. This took up a lot of my weekend, though I did find time to work Saturday night at the 80's club and finish up one of the patterns for my wedding dress.

I'm signed up for a three day PMP class in Atlanta the second week of June, and last week they sent me two books to read before the class. One is the Guide to the PMBOK (NOT a fun read, I have tried before) and one is PMP test study tome. I'm supposed to read both of these before June 9th. Thanks, guys! My plan is to read the study guide, as I already know I won't make it through the Guide to the PMBOK. I'll reference the guide during my reading of the study guide. I need to read four chapters a week. When? I have no clue. While I'm sleeping?

I do want to earn the certification. If I do not, it will be bad. If I do it, it will be good. That's easy math. I want to do it, I am just not sure I can do it right now. But I must, and so I guess, it follows I will find a way that I can.

Paul has been amazingly supportive. I had little time to help around the house before. Now, I have none. Zero. He is totally supportive. If we did not live together, this would be impossible, because we would never see each other. At least since we live together I can still see him sitting in the window watching the birdies and squirrels while I study. Getting this done will benefit both of us in the long run, and he knows this. But it hurts to have the days slipping away, saying "no" to hikes and adventures that used to be so fun.

Mt. Whitney

need a permit to do this, and this year's permit lottery already happened:

http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/recreation/wild/mtwhitney.shtml

It might be possible to pick up dates if there are any left, after April 1st.

Perhaps next year.

anyone?

Roll on with Style and Grace!

I've had my Playstation setup to collect one million red roses for my Katamari for the past few days. When I come home, I flick on the TV to see how my little Kuro is doing with his rolling. It's frustrating to watch. The rubberband-on-controller setup is soooo slow, and most of the time, Kuro is stuck rolling the ball in a corner.

What does Kuro do when the katamari runs into something?
Kuro keeps rolling, moving slowly to the left, until an angle comes up where the Katamari can roll on.

Kuro looks pretty happy doing this, despite the big task ahead. One Million Red Roses!

I found myself running into walls last night. This isn't about you, and it isn't about me. It's about something much more important. I got mad skillz, yo, and the stonewalling and self-defeatist attitude is helping nothing. We CAN do this, and we can do it in a big way. So it's frustrating that this personal crap is in the way.

No matter, I will keep pushing, and the angle will be there, and I will roll on with style and grace, just like the King told me to...

worthwhile

The other day I realized that I have never, in my adult life, had a positive net worth.

There have been a few articles lately on CNN and other news sites about the crippling weight of student loan debt. I have to say, it's fucking bad. Really.

What exactly is the point of discouraging kids from going to college for a better education, to a better job, to more taxes to the government and a more competitive workforce?

What indeed?

And of course Bush hacks away even more aid recently. I know that's not what he SAID, but it IS what he DID...

As debt goes, it's not a bad one. interest is tax-deductible, and the rate is low. So low, it's not worth paying off early. But still, it's there, and it's bullshit.

Same thing if you want a house: debt forever. Now I'm seeing the ARM foreclosures. And laughing. "we didn't realize what we were signing." ha!

Anyway, I guess I should be happy that I'll have a positive net worth later this year. But I'll never be debt-free. It's just not the American Way.

Slapping sharks

I am constantly anxious.
It's part of my equilibrium. If I don't have a project, a goal, a change I'm working on, I will come up with a new one. Something more complex, more difficult, less attainable.

If things get quiet, I'll want to plan some ridiculous venture (endurance rally?) It's not that I'm never satisfied. I am very happy. But there's always got to be something in the works. Several somethings, usually.

If it gets too quiet, I'll start making waves. There needs to be constant motion, at least on the horizon.

And then there are all the little things; the things that are never done. The dishes, the papers that need to be filed or sent, the constant chatter of daily life that is constantly overdue. The guilt is enough to crush me. How can I find the time to file things when I'm a week behind in Chinese, agreed to go to San Jose for support time, working on the weekend, planning a trip to a tiny island no one has any information about, trying to keep in touch with my friends and family, trying to arrange a gigantic financial goal, and playing Katamari Damacy? Not that I'd have it any other way. I feel sorry for people who just plod along, waiting for life to happen. I prefer to bite off more than I can chew, and just swallow it whole if need be.

Paul signaled to me the other day that he knows this. (I assume he's known this for a long time.) Still, it's nice to hear that your insanity has already been accepted as part of the package. Good luck to him in managing me.

Resolved:

Today I resolve to write more letters.
At least once a week, be it a store-bought card or a lipstick-written note on a cocktail napkin, or a 3-page handwritten diatribe, I need to let people know what they mean to me, personally.

A friend used to send me long letters when we parted ways from high school. Every square inch of paper used... what wasn't body text was margins filled in with drawings, collage, and a lot of unintelligible but wonderful gibberish. Now that we've lost touch, I've begun trying to track down the author of these treasures. Maybe someday I'll find her and pass these letters to her grandkids.

My dad has the really sweet habit of sending cards. I used to get them more frequently when I was in college. For four years, I basically lived and breathed AAC and didn't have any social life at all. New to the City, I didn't really even have any friends here. It's not that my dad has ever been overly effusive emotionally (though he can step up to the plate quite nicely when appropriate). Just... a card... just a few words written on it... in the mailbox for me when I got home sometimes. They probably don't look like much to other people; he usually only writes a couple words in them. It's a sweet habit I'll always cherish. I still get them today.

Mass email and blogging is a sad substitute.
Send me your address.

Blah

The weekend was grand.
Friday was the party at my folks’ house. I got to drink a whole bunch of wine and see my family and friends that I see rarely. Saturday we hung around the Turner Compound with my family in the morning, then went to SF with my brother and his wife to visit their friends in the evening. It was nice to visit SF as a tourist. We drank a lot of tequila?
Sunday we returned to SF and then Berkeley after Ben & Megan went to the airport, and watched an older Errol Morris movie, Gates of Heaven. Which was subtly hilarious. Not for everyone, but I enjoyed it.

I am finally getting things out of my house that I intended to get rid of months ago. I’m tired of all the clutter! Make it go away!
Last night, I got some freecyclers to take away four garbage bags full of clothes, and also the old Mac and peripherals. The old Mac (and its peripheral cadre) took up a TON of space; I am so glad it went away. And the clothes, well, I pretty much only wear the same stuff these days, and am pretty sure I don’t need those old dominatrix boots for riding.

In fact, I need LESS CRAP in general, because I’m beginning to think I’m going to spend another ten years in this apartment. I think it will be eleven years this March. So there. Rent Control. I guess I’ll never get that garage, but if I move right now in the City, it would probably run me about $1200/month for a studio with a garage, assuming I could find a suitable one. I’d rather spend that extra $530/month on my 401K, or possibly ice cream.

I'm reading a tome about finances, which my mom gave me, not really for me, but so that I could read it and help my sister with finance. I thought it would suck, but it's actually a good read. On the other hand, I should have saved more when I was 22. I could have stopped now and still come out ahead. Damn. Can I have a do-over?
It turns out that I can't ever own a house, is what I'm gathering from all of this.

Step 4, Question #1

I’ve been directed to ask a few particular questions of myself, in my search for my own definitions of meaning and fulfillment.
First Up: What did you want to be when you grew up?

When I was very young, it seems my first career aspiration was to be a waitress. Apparently, as my parents understand it, I always saw people giving the waitress money, and decided that would be a good thing.

How does this relate to where I’m at now?

Well, if it’s true that all I saw was that a waitress got money, and I wanted money, perhaps it is this: I really don’t consider myself interested in or defined by my job. I go to work, they give me money, I turn that money into motorcycles, is how I’ve been explaining “what I do” to people for the past few years. It describes me as someone who has made a life outside of work. A good life. But it also describes me as someone who spend at least 40 hours a week being bored or worse.

Later, I decided I wanted to be a teacher.
Which is a very noble concept. I still love teaching, sharing knowledge and experience, and learning. To me, a teacher is among the most honorable professions, or positions. At some times, we are all teachers, professionally or not.

At some point, I seemed to want to be a lawyer. I don’t know how much of that was because I love a good argument (I do), and how much was because people seem to think that’s a good thing for a kid to want to be. I really don’t think I’d enjoy being a lawyer.

The President thing must have just been one of those things kids say. Why the hell would I want to be president? I mean, sure, I’m pretty sure I could do a head-and-shoulders better job than the current president. But as a career, politics sounds horrible. Thanks, but I don’t want to turn into a shell of smiles and bullshit covering up a bunch of dry-rot. Anyone who really wants office is probably the worst person to put there. With a few exceptions. Maybe.

Then I started to mature into my teenage years; hobbies and interests start to take shape.

I think I must have been in junior high when I decided the thing to do would be to buy a semi truck or a Humvee (at that time they were still military vehicles with actual capacity and function) and live in my vehicle and travel around. That has nothing to do with occupation, but a lot to do with what I wanted to do.

In high school, I also cultivated interests in English/writing and history. History doesn’t make much of an occupation, but writing could, if I were willing to really work at it.

But really, I wanted to be a costumer. I loved to sew, I loved costume history, I loved to make things. I still love to make things, but don’t really have the time and space for sewing. I still love history and design, but I abandoned the costume thing when I realized how unstable it would be. I really like having a life with health coverage and a paycheck. At some point, I think I thought a small business: coffee chop and bookstore, possibly retail of my clothes type thing might interest me. Maybe that speaks of a need for meaningfulness in my work, a need to feel like I’m building something? Or maybe it’s just bullshit. I don’t know. Again, I may be too much of a coward to be in business for myself. I really like my health coverage. Have I mentioned I’m obsessed with health insurance? Perhaps the expensive ambulance trips and surgeries that took place while I was in college, are not coincidental to my decision to shift to a more stable, employer-oriented job market. So. Fashion. I mean, it’s what my degree was in.

You think you want to be a designer, because everybody is supposed to want that. But at the same time, you can’t stand the designers you meet. My mind is too technical and pragmatic to deal with this silliness. Design is good, but not when it’s been given a bad name by these morons. I know how to put together a corset and straightjacket, I know the best way to set armholes and zippers, and I don’t understand why I have to explain repeatedly that we can’t change a pocket width by 1/16” because of mass production restraints. Further, I’m not sure I care.

So what did I want to be when I grew up?

I guess I wanted to teach and learn.
I guess I wanted to make an impact in people’s lives.
I guess I wanted to make money.
I guess I wanted to travel and be free of a lot of crap.
I guess I wanted to write, which could mean a lot of learning, or traveling, or research. It could have meant telling stories or it could have meant teaching.
I guess I wanted to create, and in a very hands-on, technical way. I loved the craft, the information, the meanings and histories, and even more, the rustles and smells of the materials.
I guess I wanted to have ownership in something, and a quiet and personal connection.
I guess I wanted to make ends meet, to allow for other needs in my life. Health, proximity to family, and my life in the city, to name a few…

My Penance for Art School

I wiped the hard drive from the G3 and need to get rid of a whole bunch of shit in my house: clothes and shoes, mostly. A car would be a handy thing once or twice a year. Goodwill won’t come pick this shit up; I gotta, like, rent a car. But I don’t got no license even for that. I want to get rid of a lot of things in my life, material and otherwise. I’m trying to simplify. Every weekend I get a little more done. Things are starting to make sense. Spending time at home, reading, listening to interesting lectures, or walking around the City, have been really nice.

On the other hand, I really need to streamline my life in such a way as to cut down on the cost. My biggest weakness seems to be eating out. I have to learn to cook more and bring lunches to work and all that. I don’t even know where to start.

But, financially, I WILL make inroads. I HAVE made inroads in the past year or so, and continue to do so. I've started reading about money. Even when it doesn't apply to me, I'm trying to become more literate.

Money can be a sticky subject to some people, but I'm trying to bring it into focus in my life. After all, I spend a lot of my time going to work to get it, so it better be worth something. What do I have to show for that part of my life spent at the office? What do I WANT to show for it? I know I'm not a flat-screen TV and fancy car kind of girl. But, consciously, what do I want? What am I willing to trade my time and effort for?

Something I’ve been doing lately is trying to pay down my student loan debt faster. I’m on some sort of auto-pay plan where the consolidation bank takes payments directly out of my checking account every month. I’ve been on that plan for a few years, and it grants you a reduction on your interest rate.

Well, since I wanted to pay it down a little faster, I decided to start sending them additional money by check every month as well. Sounds good, yes? Well, it’s good for me, but less good for them. It’s a fine line creditors walk: on the one hand, they want you to be in debt. They want you to be buried in it, and just pay the minimum all the time. More interest for them, more money for them to invest in the interim. But they don’t want you to be so buried that you can’t pay. A very fine line. It’s a shitty game they play, and you’re a fool if you let them play you with it in the realm of credit cards. It’s a little less foolish to have the debt for student loans and houses. But still, you want to pay that shit off. Interest charges are free money you’re giving to someone who already has plenty of money.

My $104.69, or whatever it is exactly, is supposed to go out of my checking account automatically every month, and then I was going to send in extra checks. But I wanted them to continue to take the “EZ-Pay” (that’s what they call it) money out every month to keep me on track and keep my discounts. Hell, they even sent me a letter last month that my interest rate was to go down again because I’d been doing EZ-Pay for so long. Oh Boy!

How do I make this happen? Huh. I looked all over the payment coupon to find a checkbox or something, to apply this additional payment without upsetting my schedule: nothing. After reading all the fine print on the back of the statement, I did see a note that you could pay extra without advancing your next scheduled due date if you indicated that on the coupon. Which, since there’s no express place to “indicate” that, I assumed meant you had to write it on there yourself. STUPID. But I did it. Twice. Handwritten on the front of the coupon. Really, that’s good because it’s so noticeable I guess, you can’t miss the handwritten note?

I realize I am a Rocket Scientist.
Dumbasses ignored it. Advanced my payment, and won’t fix it. I spent some time on the phone with “Linda” this morning, who didn’t seem thrilled to deal with me. I was a little irate, and she sounded like she hadn’t had her coffee yet. When I deal with customer service or tech support people who are not particularly interested in being helpful, I assume that it’s because they are sick of irate customers. If they are sick of irate customers, I assume it’s because there are a large number of unhappy customers. So, Citibank probably sucks, is what her tone told me. It’s not her fault the people in the other department didn’t feel like following handwritten instructions, just like it’s not those envelope-openers’ fault that someone in management doesn’t have a checkbox put on the payment coupons to make this fucking simple. It’s nobody’s fault. That’s shitty corporate America’s telephone tree customer support model. Nobody you talk to can actually fix anything.

The conspiracy part of me thinks they don’t do that because it doesn’t benefit them to have you paying this thing down faster.
The part of me that dealt with Linda this morning makes me think they are just stupid and lazy. That’s also the part of me that’s been looking at their pathetic website.

Oh, and also the info on the website about my payment due and amount due don’t match the information on the telephone system. I’ll have to take Linda’s word, and the word of the auto-telephone recording, that I don’t have a payment due in two days, since that’s not what the website shows.

So, fuck you very much Citibank Student Loans.

Do you really have time for this shit right now?

I will be dead for a long, long time.

And some unpopular opinions

Update:
1.) I went on a Monday Night Ride, for the first time in a long time. I only went for one reason. Keep that in mind when you tell me how busy you are.

2.) I think the Mandarin teacher is hot for my boyfriend. I could get offended and snap her in two. Or I could sell him to her in exchange for an “A.”

3.) I fucking hate laundromats.

4.) Saturday was spent roaming around the city, drinking, shopping for computer stuff, and bitching about the Love Parade. What a useless distraction. There’s an honest-to-goodness peace rally at one end of the downtown, and then there’s this bullshit blinky thumpy tripe. Way to go, idiot electronica consumers. And for fucks sake, don’t get all starry eyed and preachy about the importance of the electronic dance community. Call it what it is: a bunch of blinky blinky bullshit. Your 5-year old has more sophisticated interests. Oooh! TWELVE LIVE DJ’s! Stop the presses. But not traffic, not for that.

5.) Sunday I went to volunteer at the Rider Survival Skills Day in La Honda. It’s a fundraiser for the La Honda Volunteer Fire Brigade. I watched some fantastically bad parking jobs, and saw some really neat old bikes. Including, finally, a GSXR even I wanted! Oooh! I feel so squidly!

6.) Tuesday we went and saw Marisa off on a nice hangover.

7.) The grief is unimaginable. And yet I keep catching myself imagining it. At least, the not-knowing is over, but the conditions make it a new kind of hell. For those of us on the periphery, looking in, it is sad and confusing. For those in the middle of it, my heart goes out to you. As little as I knew Melinda Moore, I did enjoy her and find her inspiring. I don’t want to hear that you knew her, or that we lost one of the good ones, or a hero, oh, another one got taken from us, or some crap.* Of course you knew her; if you rode in the area and didn’t ever meet her, you weren’t fucking riding enough. Remember her the way you remembered her a month ago; death is not a glorifying event. This is the part where everyone is going to bring up some other riders that died in the past couple of years. It’s not the same. It never is. It’s a personal hell for her family and fiancé, and my sincerest thoughts are with them. But to say that it is my own pain, would be insincere. I wonder, and it brings me such sadness to think of the mistake, and the things that were left behind, and the journey that the close people will have to start, but it is not my story. And if its not yours either, just shut the fuck up, offer your condolences, celebrate the life as it was , not the death as you imagine it, and take care of those in your own life. Goodbye Big Red. I hardly knew you, but somehow you always remembered my name. I doubt you were a hero, but you had people in your life who love you. May they find their peace with and without you somehow.
(*I’m still hearing about Sean Crane from people I’m pretty sure barely knew him. Let him rest, people. Let it be as it was, not as you wish it to be.)

8.) We are considering hopping on our bikes early Saturday morning to go to Reno to watch Supermoto, and returning that evening when they are over. I think this means I’m a Beemer guy, even though I don’t have a Beemer.

9.) Mandarin is retarded. Tonal language: a very stupid idea.

10.) I’ve been thinking a lot about life paths and compromise lately. I’m aware of compromise in my life but the very thought of it seems to offend people. Case in point: Going to the Academy of Art, I guess everyone is supposed to want to be some faaaabulous fashion design queen. Actually, I very much knew I wanted to get into costuming. Until somewhere toward the end of my time there, when I realized that Costuming: the Career, was totally not for me. I loved the art, but it would mean finding a new job after each project, it meant low pay, no job security, no insurance, no benefits. Maybe it’s because I was going into the hospital more than my peers, but that didn’t seem OK for me. So, OK, I guess Fashion, I mean, that was my major after all. Well, a few weeks into the job search, it looked real bleak. Nothing remotely creatively interesting in the Bay Area. What’s left of the Fashion Design jobs is mostly in LA or New York. Crisis. I got desperate, started looking at other fields. People were still hiring for every goddam thing in the computer industry at that time. Internet crap, whatever, I needed a job. I got really lucky, I guess, at the job I landed, when I’d really given up hope for an apparel industry job. But the thing I wasn’t willing to do was move. I have family here, and I love the area too much to move out to where the better jobs are. Even though I’d spent 4 years in school chasing the degree, the job wouldn’t be worth it to me.

If someone tells you they don’t compromise, they are full of shit, or an incredibly boring person. For everything you give up, you get something else. For everything you decide is non-negotiable, you will find something that is, if you look. And that’s how your values grow and develop. If you’ve never sat down and acquainted yourself with the choices you’ve made, the things you’ve weighed against each other to put you on your path, you really don’t know where your values are taking you.

So I ask you, what are the compromises you have made in your life, and what do they tell you about yourself?