List your top 5 grocery store items.
Yogurt
Cottage cheese (but not for me – can’t stand the texture!)
Half and half
Coffee
Agave
Category: Random
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Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.
This one is potentially very easy, especially as a grown-ass “daddy’s girl”, but I’m not going to do that. I’m not even going to go for the almost equally easy answer of “my husband”. For this prompt, I am going to describe my mentor.
He’s a good guy in general, though because of his position in business, he sometimes has to be a hard ass. He even sometimes pretends that he is a flat out asshole. There were times early on that I would have agreed with that assessment, but I know better now. He is a good man, but not always a nice man. There is a distinct difference, and I would rather deal with a good person than a nice person if I had to choose between the two.
He is smart – he knows his shit about his job and his industry. Is he a genius? No, but most people aren’t. We can’t all be Einstein or Hawking or Da Vinci. The key thing about this is that he knows he doesn’t know everything and actually strives to surround himself with people who know more than he does, so that he can learn from them and build an effective, successful team.
He is fair and generous but also has an immense amount of backbone. He stands up for himself, and for others. He values the loyalty of his team, and reciprocates that loyalty. He admits when he is wrong, and will sincerely apologize if he steps out of line. He is genuine.
I have learned a great deal from him, professionally and personally. He has taught me things that were sometimes a bit painful to learn, but that I believe have helped to make me a better person and more effective professional. And for that, I am eternally grateful.
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Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?
Not at all.
As a general rule, I have gotten to a point where I have accepted that life generally happens regardless of the dreams and plans we have for the future. Yes, those dreams can still happen if you put the work in, but the timeline is not at all certain. I don’t usually think about what I want my life to be in a year or two or five, because, well, who the hell knows? Don’t get me wrong, I still have long term goals, but don’t assume that they will be reality at any specific point in time.
At the same time, I do still make assumptions that certain things won’t or can’t change that much. This past year has been an example of how wrong I can be about life and myself. Things on both fronts are very different than what I assumed would be my status quo.
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There is a Rage Against the Machine song called Freedom that includes, in a quiet moment of the song, the words, “anger is a gift”. This is so true, and I have experienced the subjective truth of that today.
I have been stressing lately; life has just been throwing one ridiculous curveball after another. I was at my breaking point. Another curveball is lobbed my way and smacks me in the nose. I got pissed. I was white hot, livid. I don’t usually get like that. Ever. I mean, the dogs were walking slowly around me with their ears back and heads down because, I imagine, the rage was actually palpable. I put in my headphones and started blasting some angry music while taking care of what needed to be done, stewing in my hatred for life at this point. 10 minutes…. 20 minutes…. An hour has gone by now, and I feel calmer than I have in weeks. I apologized to the dogs and told them I love them.
I suppose there is something to be said for actually sitting with your emotions for a while and just letting them exist without trying to just make them stop or go away. Let them have the life they want. Yes, it can suck, but an hour of sitting with my anger is far better than the weeks of misery and anxiety I’ve spent trying to suppress it and pretend it didn’t exist.
That said, today, anger was a gift. And some days, so too are sadness and fear. I think the key is to sit with them – let them exist – and then, take inventory of what you have to work with and move on with what needs to be done once their visit is over.
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Who were your favorite and least favorite characters from this movie? And I’m talking about from the original animated Disney film, not the more recent live action version, which I haven’t seen. I ask because something I saw this morning reminded me of the croquet game they played, and of course, my mind spiraled down the proverbial rabbit hole, which is, actually, rather appropriate for this train of thought.
Anyway, I imagine a lot of women would say that when they were little girls, Alice was their favorite character, and maybe they changed their mind later in life, but I didn’t think that way. I was fascinated by the Cheshire Cat. He was always smiling, and seemed to speak in riddles. Why was he always smiling? And why couldn’t he just say whatever he wanted to say? He was, to me, a puzzle to solve. I would rewind the movie and watch the scenes with him over and over trying to figure it out.
My least favorite character was probably the Mad Hatter. He was mean to Alice, though in a different way than the Queen of Hearts. With her, you knew what to expect. He seemed nice at times, but other times was just rude and…. icky. I’m sure there’s a better word for it, but thinking about it from a childhood perspective, that’s all I can come up with. He made things confusing in a frustrating fashion, asking questions and never letting Alice answer, then getting mad when she got upset. I did, however, enjoy the idea of celebrating un-birthdays.
That’s all. Just a dose of Saturday randomness. Back to studying now!
Have a great weekend!
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What’s your favorite cartoon?
Invader Zim
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I must admit, the ellipsis is one of my favorite forms of punctuation.
I use it often in my personal writing/journal, or in text messages. Less often in blogs and rarely in my professional writing. I believe it to be a very powerful tool in writing. It indicates missing words, or a pause (in thought, at least for me), and can entice readers to read on. To see what they are missing.
There is really no point to this, I just wanted to talk about the ellipsis, because I honestly think it is fabulous and underappreciated as a punctuation mark.
That is all. Carry on, and have a wonderful evening!
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I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of lucid dreaming. Mostly, I just have very strange dreams, but some pretty terrifying nightmares too. I actually have a collection of writings about my recurring dreams over the years that I thought to publish one day…. dreams for another time, I suppose. Anyway, the thought of being able to realize that I’m dreaming and exert some measure of control over the scenes playing out in my mind is just – wow. That would be phenomenal.
I’ve had dreams where I realize that I’m dreaming, but once that thought is fully formed in my mind, I wake up and the experience is over. But not last night….
I began dreaming shortly after falling asleep (I think). I was home in the dream, and Sandy was running around doing dog things. She barked once or twice, and I look over and see this spider, and feel an immediate sense of horror. I’m not a fan of spiders by any means, but as long as they are away from me or the dogs, I generally don’t care much. This one was different. I could almost feel evil emanating from it, or malintent. I don’t know how to explain it.
Either way, the spider was shaped in such a way that its legs spread in front and behind it, and you could overlay a perfect figure 8 on top of it with the center of its body being where the figure 8 crosses itself. It wasn’t like any spider I’ve ever seen, and yes, I have since done an internet search and it looked like an elongated version of a St. Andrew’s Cross spider, but with a smaller abdomen, and thicker legs with a little more distance between the legs in each pair. It was probably 3 or 4 inches long, maybe? The odd thing was that its body was weird… it almost looked like it had two abdomens, one at the top and one at the bottom, no head or anything.
In the dream, I thought, I hope the spider leaves the dogs alone; we don’t have benadryl handy and I don’t want to have to rush anyone to the vet for a spider bite. Right then, the spider jumped onto Sandy, and somehow I knew that it intended to bite her. It was then that I realized I was dreaming. The spider was crawling up to her neck, and I was trying to get to her to knock the spider off and kill it, but suddenly my legs were sinking into the floor. I could barely move. Time felt like it slowed down and I was watching things in slow motion. I could feel my heart rate and sense of fear increasing, and I just said to myself, “it’s ok, this is just a dream, Sandy’s not actually in danger, I just need to get to her and kill the spider. I wish I could just float instead of being trapped in the floor.” And voila, I was floating! I imagined a rope, and then used that to pull myself closer to Sandy. As soon as I touched Sandy and went to knock the spider to the floor, I woke up.
What an intense freaking experience!! I knew I was dreaming, I held on to that knowledge and was able to influence the events of the dream with my thoughts!
I need to research this a bit and see if there are ways to induce lucid dreaming, because I absolutely loved that feeling and am so curious as to what kinds of things I could co-create with my subconscious!
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Share five things you’re good at.
Sarcasm to start…. Breathing, existing, sleeping….. things that the “I” we usually consider isn’t too involved with.
In an effort to provide a more serious answer, though, this is kinda hard for me, cuz I’m not usually that great at giving myself praise, but I will certainly give it a shot!
1 – I am good at solving problems. This can pertain to personal, professional or academic problems.
2 – I am good at caring for others. This can be pets, friends, family and sometimes even strangers. It is just part of how I operate.
3 – I like to think that I am a pretty good writer.
4 – I am good at mediating, which kinda goes back to the problem solving thing. I can find a solution or scenario that works well for everyone involved.
5 – I am good at burying my emotions, and maintaining a visage of serenity and cheerfulness.
So yeah. Five things I’m good at.
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Are you more of a night or morning person?
Depends.
I can do either routine as necessary, but given a choice when it comes to my work and obligation schedule, I would definitely prefer something geared toward night owl hours. I seem to function better when the rest of the world is unconscious. Take that as you will, but it’s just how I operate. 🙂
A Peculiar Cerebral Tangle 