contemplation: challenge, conflict and choices

Identifying myself as a writer and being a writer present quite a challenge.

I just had one of those aha! moments. Like the flash of a camera. Or when the exactly right word pops into consciousness. Most occasions those come and go and are never recorded even in one of the numerous little notepads I tote routinely.

Since I happened to be at the computer (and just the other day wrote of blog-worthy passing moments that too come and go), I decided to capture the thought as it sublimely flashed in my mind.

By that time, the precise words had drifted past, leaving me with a workable resemblance. More often than not, my hands aren’t quick enough to capture that burst of knowingness (and short it is too). I’m not even gonna poke at the procrastinator within who doesn’t put pen to paper as she should. 😉

Being a writer and calling myself a writer are two different things and fundamental in an ongoing struggle with self-acceptance, self-worth and things related like joy, prosperity and fulfillment.

Instigating these reflections (not for the first time certainly) I think is the current potential dilemma that could require me to decide between two choices (per prior post) — each positive, each quite different from the other, each worthy of consideration, each welcomed for its attributes.

As one who relishes having choices and needs to have choices (addendum: far and above the levels of most), I can’t really complain. I know what it is to have no choice, to have choices made for me and having choices made for me and forced upon me that were excruciating painful, violated my will and good and the higher will and forces — be they called Spirit or God or Universe or All That Is.

What it seems to boil down to is that if indeed I am faced with choosing between two jobs (and the odds I reckon are stronger than not), then I’ll need to draw from some core truths and  values that I do not necessarily deem as self-evident.

I love having choices. Better is having two or more good choices. They do, however, demand considerable contemplation and a willingness to not only be aware of your true self but to act in accordance.

Changing times indeed.

it’s friggin’ weird all right

I emailed a friend yesterday saying it’s friggin’ weird how life goes sometimes.

Case in point: Got a call yesterday from Costco inviting me to interview in P-town. (Don’t care to disclose the name just now.) A lovely town where I’ve spent time recently and would dearly love to live. A town around 2-1/2 hours  away by car. More on the Costco moment in a moment

Then, as it happens, I also need to take the car in to fix a repair job flubbed in Colorado. The shop’s part of a nationwide chain and for warranty purposes I need to take her to the nearest site, which  happens to be P-town.

So a twofer of car repairs and interview in the town that I may one day call home.

Now to the interview. I’ve been trying to get on with Costco for years. Yes, years. Plenty of times have I said “I need to work for Costco.” I’m perfect for it. Share the same high standards of work ethics and customer service. I hold the company, its  practices and policies, in the highest respect and regard.

And I’m interviewing with them!

Here’s the rub for as Gilda Radner used to say on “Saturday Night Live,” it’s always something. There’s no set work schedule at Costco. Could be 25 hours a week, 10 or 40. No way of knowing week to week, potentially perilous and damaging to finances. On the other hand, it’s also a potential boost with sufficient hours due to a decent starting wage ($11 I believe). All things considered it’s well worth the interview and drive.

Another aspect in the friggin’ weird. I moved to this town just five weeks ago. Amid a dearth of work and very positive talk with my boss, we just (just = as of just last week) got my quantity of weekly stories up to the level discussed pre-hire and one that enables me to meet my obligations, put gas in the car and have enough left for beers.

In that order of importance. 🙂

I like my job, I love the writing. And I make little. This is no cash cow, that is certain. Fact is, the only way I can make it work is by keeping living expenses very low. Simple and minimalist (and at this time and place in my life I’m able to do so).

So that’s the scoop. Car repairs and interview occurring simultaneously and both in a town I really like. Potential job with Costco and improvement in current work situation occurring simultaneously.

What’s going on up there in the ethers I cannot say, save that it’s friggin’ weird all right.

 

 

Cheap fun in Kingman, AZ. (Cheap sardines too.)

It’s big. It’s huge. It’s the talk of the town.

Who’d a-thought it’d generate all this enthusiastic interest? (Well, I woulda.)

Who’d a-thought that I’d stop by, curious and excited for something to do in this, a small, town.

Whooooooooo hoooooo! Welcome to:

Yes, this brand-spanking-new 99-cent store has come to Kingman, Arizona. And it is not a bad place at all (that goes for Kingman as well).  Indeed, I was shocked when I spontaneously bopped in on the way to the bank. The place was packed! You’d think it was December 23 — minus the panic and insanity — for the folks streaming through the aisles, perusing the plethora of items, pushing carts with foods and goods sufficient to feed a family of four following a flood.  The interest and excitement in the air were palpable.

And this is what day?! Thursday mid-afternoon. Can only imagine what it looks like on a weekend!
Matter of fact, with the lines and seemingly everyone’s baskets loaded up but mine, I  was very nearly about to retreat and reshelve my puny lil’ four items and return later that night just before the store closed to (hopefully) beat the crowds when some nice person with plenty of items offered to let me go ahead.

It was just that busy and just that exciting at the 99-cent store (on an off-day yet!). I was also saying that I was shocked not only by the crowd but the store. Big, spacious, clean, organized, super nicely laid out, not all trashy like some I’ve seen, and the products … wowee, I must say. A REAL variety, from the goods you usually see in dollar stores to foods and produce. And not the yuck stuff that’s a day away from the compost pile or utterly flavorless mushy green beans from a can.

Kingman’s new 99-cent store is, I tremble to say, the best — in terms of variety, quality, presentation and value — I’ve ever seen in a dollar store. (I tremble because I speak with unintentional authority, I’ve perused just that many dollar stores across lord knows how many states, cities and small towns in my time.)

And I, your unofficial and unpaid roving reporter, was there, bringing you the news of this terrific and already well-received and popular addition to Kingman.

Life in a small town … where the entertainment’s cheap and too my cans of sardines.

Play With Prompts!

The inner child has been brutally beaten and eviscerated of late and through her childhood. I can’t change her parents or what they did. I (as the adult now in charge) can only intervene — which is a great thing — to see that she receives the protection she never had. And kindness. Respect and acknowledgment in the long healing process.

And play! Play is healing. Play — “spiel” in German — was neither word nor reality in childhood. The “spiel” there sprung forth, appropriately enough, because in many ways, my childhood was as bleakly dark German as one familiar with that culture might imagine. As I always say, I didn’t have a childhood, I had a workhood and a slavehood. Not here to rub those old wounds, rather to let that little girl deprived of play do just that. Play.

Play with Prompts! Found this site of writing prompts aimed at kids, 20 prompts to be exact.

Twenty Fun Writing Prompts for Children

Didn’t read ’em, rather just picked a number … 18. Will roll with whatever it is. Let’s see what it says!

“Write a poem in the form of a letter to someone you miss.”

Fun! And completely off the cuff. Here we go.

Oh little boy, so cute ‘n’ curly
your hair as if wrapped at the beauty salon
Your teeth white but not so pearly
the eggshell shade of an eagle’s talon.

Oh little boy, you rambunctious lad
galavanting off far away and wide
for your devilish adventures to be had
tomcatting it, no one at your side.

Oh little boy, you’re a what you say?
A father. Again?! How could that be?
Oh, we all know as we know the sun each day
Charlie, you’re a rascal humping all ladies you see!

Oh Charlie, I miss you so.
Black curls and doggy breath ever with me.
Your crafty crawls under fences are never forgotten
Neither your 100 pups so conceived ill-gotten!

I love you, Charlie.  (terrier and poodle mix and dog of childhood)

The Zen and the zealot of dogwalking

Dogs and people and walking. You know the ones. The folks who get walked by their dogs. The dogs who are like Alaskan huskies hauling people behind on the wooden sleds. Only substitute sidewalks for snow, huskies for any other breed and sleds for leashes.

I’ve never cared for that look. Never ever. I like dogs that are disciplined and have been through basic obedience, at the very least. A disciplined dog is a happy dog. A disciplined dog is also a happy human. Your mileage may vary but that’s how I look at it.

And, as an aside, one of several reasons I like watching dog shows. The animals are extremely cared for, obviously, well behaved and responsive on a leash.

I digress. As I was saying, I’ve never cared for that look for Dog Walking Person.

And yet there I am, doing it. Before  you launch an attack or point out the irony, let me finish. The dog I am walking is not mine. Repeat: not mine. He’s my roommate’s. And since he’s away for a spell, dog Ivan falls under my care.

Ivan is a German shorthaired pointer. A medium-sized dog who’s about bulk. And around 6-8 extra pounds, hence I’m giving him the walks he doesn’t normally get.

Bulk and physical might. And no discipline. A dangerous combo indeed. Our walks consist of him pulling and straining 10 steps ahead of me and me holding tight to the leash with both hands. It’s not as easy as it sounds. For starters, I have maybe only 50 pounds on him and am little taller than Ivan standing on his back legs. It takes every ounce of energy and muscle to keep pace, keep control and keep him out of trouble.

The Zen of dogwalking? Try the zealot of dogwalking.

(a zealot by the name of Ivan.)

My roommate, on the other hand, is built like a linebacker, thus him walking Ivan would not be nearly the exhausting strain that it is for me.

Oh, and did I mention the leash burns of the hands?

I do rather dislike that sight of Dog Walking Person, yet I am that person while the roommate’s away. I ought to wear a sign on my back that reads: Not My dog. And a pair of falconry gloves.

Begging for crumbs in the job market. (Not fucking again!)

Feeling no burning, or even lukewarm, enthusiasm for the topic in mind for today’s post, I left it to WP to “inspire me,” hit said link and got:

Write about your strongest memory of heart-pounding belly-twisting nervousness: what caused the adrenaline? Was it justified? How did you respond?

WTF?! Even worse than the topic I’d had in mind! I’m here to write posts, not books! Never mind that the odds of (blog) publishing such personal material are nil or very nearly.

So the subject of work it will be!

And by work, I mean looking for. God, am I really here again? Rooting like a starved pig for that rare mushroom on the forest floor? Am I really here AGAIN, pleading for a crumb from the universe, from an employer with a job that I don’t want to do and have no business doing. Enough of my life has been spent in waste  and depletion. Years in all shades of gray from unhappiness to abject misery.

And here we are ahgain … ah, never mind. I’m tired living the story and exhausted telling it.

I want, I truly want, a life of authenticity and abundance. What’s wrong with that? Everything, according to my experiences and beliefs in childhood (big thank you to the parents).

But this chapter is NOT supposed to be about that. It’s NOT supposed to be about continuing the poverty and unhappiness. I know that sure as I know that ocean tides ebb and flow. I’ve been in ebb. Big time all pervasive and prevailing ebb. The forces of nature and power of the tides are working in my behalf (finally). I had no say or control over that any more than I did the darkness and misery that engulfed me/my life not long ago.

It’s that … false starts. The brass ring ’til I fucking dropped it in Prescott (a story not to be told). A bad attitude … bad in the sense of “here were are again, back in this old dark place” — a place I suspect/feel/intuit is NOT where I’m supposed to be.

I don’t quite know how to scale this molehill that I’m making into a mountain.

And then there’s the first year anniversary of my father’s passing looming. Oh so close. Grief wracks  the guts and mind covertly and furtively. Like the loner guest living tucked away in the back of the house. You never see him. He comes out only for his meals that he takes back to his room. In the back of the house. No one there. Not a plant. Not a pet. Not even an artificial plastic fern to mimic greenery.

It’s those characters who never speak, who keep to themselves, who on the surface seem fine to go about their lives, such as they are or are not, as they are. It’s the figures who DON’T talk that can be the most frightening of all.

Perhaps I should make his acquaintance. He’s in my house, after all. He’s an uncommunicative oddball, an eccentric with no place to go (but his room) and no one to talk to but himself and how healthy is that, really?

Meandering thoughts from a blog post whose topic was to be the search for a job.

Old crap topic. Loner uncommunicative man in the back room of the house. Need to make his acquaintance, if he’ll let me.

Cliches and history tell us that it’s “always the quiet ones,” “the neighbor who never bothered anyone and just hung out in his garage” that are concerns. Dunno that I’d go THAT far with my loner uncommunicative man in my house.

But something … something is not right … and I need to find out what is troubling him. If I can.

When life’s pizza slices turn cold

Like pizza, certain slices of life are best served up hot rather than cold from the refrigerator after a day, a week, a month.

In fact, occasional have been those snippets of life, anecdotes or passing and seemingly banal moments when the thought’s arisen: “That’d be a great blog post.” Then the experience flows past and with it its blog-worthy aura. I’ve not missed blogging really. Five years of consistent contributions and dialogue is not to shake a stick at, methinks. Three years is the normal blog lifespan, I reckon. Contrary to the cliche, absence (from blogging) has not made my heart grow fonder. I’ve liked being away.

Anyhow.

I’ve got an amusing anecdote about my roommate, a guy — not merely a guy but a biker dude —  and laundry.  It’s somewhat dated, granted, and worth telling, yet for some reason I’m unable to draw from the muse to do so.

Worries, stress, anxieties, fears, thoughts and ruminations that put me ill at ease about life (present and future) weigh. As an analogy, some of them are mean clowns, bereft of joie de vivre. Others are aged grandmamas with declined hearing and mobility. Many are dreams tossed into a net like dead fish and some are … simply sorrows. Tears cried, in greater number tears unshed.

Grief unprocessed.

The niggling reason I can’t write on that funny laundry blurb. It remains in the fridge like that pizza slice. Oh well. I’ll {ahem} hang it up for now.

Discovering the FREE in Freelancing

January 4. Was it really that long ago that I last posted?

Not here to bemoan the passage of time, my absence of posting within it or to catch up. A ridiculous notion.

I am here to express, and to a certain extent unload, the dismay that blankets me now. I’m a freelancer who’s discovered the operative element in that word: free.

Doesn’t matter where I work. Okay, a small local paper. Doesn’t matter where. Okay, in a state that starts with A and btw, I love Arizona. It’s a damn fine state and plentiful red for this hardcore conservative libertarian.

Doesn’t matter the town’s name. Really doesn’t.

What’s notable is I’m a freelance reporter, features specifically, at this little paper. I was brought on board as a stringer so no illusions about it being “fulltime” or “well paid” or bountiful in production. About 8-12 stories a week (it’s a weekly) was a reasonable expectation. Thus FT-ish and I could squeak by long as I keep expenses uber low.

Well, it hasn’t gone that way in quantity (reasons unnecessary for this posting) and even if those confining conditions are “removed,” couldn’t say the figure’s reasonable.

+++

I’m so excited! My first full paycheck in a long time AND for doing something I love and am meant to do! Work with purpose! Pay for work with purpose! A concept that I must continually roll around on my tongue like a spiced walnut or splash of (not cheap box) red wine.

I know it won’t be much. A few hundred dollars that’ll pay most but not all the rent. It’s progress from continuing to dip into the fund left by a family member and I’m in NO WAY ready or desiring to write about him and that passing on the blog or anywhere else.

I delay opening the envelope containing the check. I want to savor the anticipation of being paid for what I love to do and am meant to do. I continue the walk through the desert heat toward home.

Finally I’m ready. “$325 or so isn’t a lot but it’ll go toward the rent. I’m excited!”

I open the envelope, remove the check. My eyes widen. My breathing stops. My heartbeat’s arrested.

$159 and some change.

Wait, is that right? I scrutinize the attached record of stories and photos for the past two weeks. Repeatedly. Many times over. I practically memorize it.

It’s accurate. No articles or photos overlooked.

In a two-week period, I’ve earned $159.

That’s a few tanks of gas. Not even half the rent. I’m heartsick and stomach-sick. I feel like throwing up. The emotion is that intense. Emotion of what? Lack. Panic. Creeping return impoverishment and poverty (that I’ve already been through, endured, survived.)

Prosperity? No. Abundance. Fuck no, save for the love of writing on the spiritual plane. But spirit don’t gotta have an abode to live. Or bills to pay.

Two weeks of work. $159. It spins inside heart and mind, instigating an urge to both cry and vomit. I’ve always held my emotions in my stomach. I’m heartsick and heartbroken both.

= = =

I calculate things. I earn a penny a word. It gets worse. I roughly calculate in my mind the hours spent on each story. The time to travel, to do the interviews, to take the photos, to transcribe the recorded interview, to write the raw story, to *craft* the story, to manage the photos and write the captions.

I might make $5 an hour.

What is the minimum wage in Arizona? $7.80.

= = =

The life for this freelancer is this. That which is described above. I work as close to free as I’ve ever worked in my adult lifetime.

I work and so damn hard, with love in my heart and passion for writing.

For it — that is, two weeks of such impassioned and meticulous time and labor (of love) and work — I receive: approximately three tanks of gas.

I want to cry and die both. That is how heartsick I am.

27 July 2013

Starbucks cup for a buck

I’m not in love with Starbucks or its products. Yesterday, however, I strolled into a Starbucks surprise deserving of a shout-out to the ubiquitous java supplier.

Just yesterday (1-3-2013) it rolled out its tumbler for a buck. Made of recycled materials and plastic,  its designed to cut down on paper waste — of which there’s plenty, as any visit to Starbucks reveals.

It looks exactly like the “real deal” — same logo, same design, same sized sip hole. The material’s thick enough to withstand hot sudsy washes yet thin enough to conduct liquid’s heat to the hand. Oh, and the cup’s got the three lines demarcating size: tall, grande and venti.

Pretty cool methinks. And only for a single greenback! (.776 EU, .98 CAD, .995 AUD, 88.2 JPY).

Of course the longstanding policy of a dime off your bill when you bring in your own mug (Starbucks-affiliated or not) continues. In my case, nine more cuppa joes and the tumbler’ll pay for itself. After that, it’s a dime a pop free and clear.

The Starbucks cup for a buck … a hot deal …

Starbucks cup for a buck

2013, oh happy to see you!

Ambivalence ain’t the best associate with whom to re-enter blogging. Surely there are most congenial ones to be had — confidence, excitement, rarin’ to go ambition. There it is anyhow.

Ambivalence is what I’ve got, the scars of blogging past and disappointments inflicted by readership. Ain’t  gonna dredge those channels. Too early in a new year for revisiting the truth that people suck. I can defer until Jan. 3. Perhaps the 4th if I really push it.

The act of writing is paramount, even if no one’s listening or interested or caring. The gift and curse of a genuine writer. To be a writer: an honor,  nee state of beingness, of such magnitude that I still can’t wrap my thoughts around it for reasons too personal to put into a blog, even if no one’s reading.
There it is.

Anyhow, the new year is upon us. If history’s any indicator, I’m due to watch a lot of TV in 2013.

How can I present such a prognostication this early in the game? For years dating back to I don’t know when, whatever I’m doing on New Year’s Eve reveals the tone-theme-mood of the coming year.

And since I was at the local watering hole — surprisingly (if not disappointingly) uncrowded for a New Year’s Eve and a half hour before the clock struck midnight — with no one really to talk to and staring up at the TV broadcasting the Times Square ball drop that in reality had taken place two hours prior — well, that can mean only that I’m destined to watch lottsa TV this year.

Ever the outsider observing.  The gift and curse of a writer,  I suppose.

I digress.

Contrary to a good portion of the U.S. population, I did not greet this first day of 2013 with a hangover.  Even in my youth, lost before it ever begun, I didn’t view NY Eve as reason or opportunity to get as wasted as humanly possible while retaining mortality.

No, my persuasions incline toward the Japanese style of celebration, which lean toward serenity and cleanliness. Yes, despite being back on Western soil, I continue the tradition of o-soji — the Great Clean — whereupon house, home, property, workspace and automobiles are cleared of clutter and dirt. Windows too to anyone who happened by this blog!

Traditionally debts are paid off too. Not so much in modern times. The goal is to enter the new year with a clean slate.

Well, I’m not entirely there yet but I come damn close.

Then there’s the visits to the shrines, usually at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and the prayers.  A severe shortage of those – shrines and temples, I mean — here in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, to be sure. Nonetheless, the shrine attitude’s within. Upon that I make due.

In a really really really clean house! … save for the clutter of my roommate’s space and basement. Gotta uphold a practice and policy of hand’s off  in that situation.

I pose to myself the question I ask of others upon this cusp of a new year: What do you hope for, wish to see in 2013?

My answer: abundance and flow … in all aspects, from finances to work to creativity — writing that book especially! — to, well, the rest I leave to the imagination.

Sure, on the surface those sound like wishes and hopes by a good third (or more) of the world. But I’m an individualist,  not a generalist, and I don’t speak for a third of the world’s population.

Abundance and flow in all areas of life: words of significance, meaning and power of me, from me and pertaining to me personally.

And there it is: blog entry numero uno in 2013.

Cautious as I go.

To anyone reading and not reading this post, I wish for you a year true to you.

Because it ain’t New Year’s without a kadomatsu (or some expression of Japanese decoration):