Two Photos - Too Funny

The only happy people I know are people I don’t know well. ---Joseph Telushkin

You’ve heard it. I’ve heard it. We’ve all heard it – many times.

Laughter is the best medicine.

The old saw has proved true for me on too many occasions to count. No matter how sad, lonely, angry or frustrated I’ve felt – and believe me, I’ve had my fair share of hit-rock-bottom days (weeks, months!) – all it takes is a good laugh, often at myself - the drama queen having a moment – and I’m better. Not all better, mind you, but at least a bit better, and that’s a start.

I’m blessed with friends, who share my sense of the ridiculous (and then some); Gracie the Dog and Zoey the Cat, who never fail to amuse at just the right moment; and an extremely astute therapist, who once prescribed an episode or two of Frazier every day to help beat the blues – advice I’ve heeded with excellent results. On occasion, often when I’m surfing the Internet, I’ll come upon something that makes me laugh, as well, and every now and then also teaches me a lesson.

Ten months ago, I wrote an essay title Managed Perfection. I’d been reading a blog written by a woman I’d never met, but who was of interest to me because of her relationship with Burning Man Traveling Companion (BMTC). Intelligent, accomplished, energetic, a business entrepreneur with contacts throughout the local community, she seemed to be perfection personified living the perfect life. Eventually, I realized that, of course, she had to seem perfect. She was using her blog to advertise her services, and she had to sell herself if she wanted to sell those services. Her posts were a part of her story, but not the ups-and-downs, warts-and-all story that makes up the real life we all live, no matter what we’d like other people to believe.

It was all a fantasy, and I knew it, but that fantasy lingered in my mind. Surely she had to be someone really special – hadn’t BMTC pulled out all the stops pursuing her? Surely he'd also had to change his ways to attract such a paragon of womanhood, who was also 10 years younger than he. The man I'd known had lived off women one way or another most of his adult life, but this woman didn't seem like the type to put up with that kind of behavior.

One of the prerequisites for writing fiction is a vivid imagination and, oh boy, do I have one of those. I’ve always enjoyed creating “characters” and giving them a story, something I did on a regular basis writing as Nikki Benjamin. Thus creating the “character” of Ms. Managed Perfection was a natural progression for me.

I’d seen only a small head shot of her, looking serene, but it was a place to start. I imagined that, as a voice teacher, she would certainly sound lovely (and she does on her Web site podcasts). Since she teaches what I’ve assumed are similar-to-yoga-style exercise classes, I was also sure she was slender and athletic like every yoga teacher I've ever seen. BMTC is only 5’7” so she’d have to be petite, as well, and – let me repeat - slender. The man I’d known for nine months did not like overweight women and really dissed them in a mean and sarcastic way – so, yes, she had to be slender for sure.

In short order, I’d created a fairy child princess – a serene yet energetic and perky got-it-all-together-in-every-way little blog-world nemesis.

You’ve heard it. I’ve heard it. We’ve all heard it – many times.

One picture (or two or three) is worth a thousand words.

More than that, one photo (or two or three) can be all it takes to crash-and-burn a fantasy with a reality that leaves you clutching your sides, howling with laughter, at yourself and your foolishness.

In the months since I’d written my Managed Perfection essay, I’d gradually lost interest in the fantasy character (and the fantasy couple) I’d created. I’d come to realize that my life was exactly the life I wanted to be living, right here, right now, and I’d begun to focus on enjoying each moment to the best of my ability. There was no longer any room in my head for thoughts of a woman I’d never met and a man I hadn’t seen in more than four years.

Having learned to use the social networking tool Twitter a few weeks ago, however, I was eager to see if anyone I knew or had known was tweeting. The only ones I found were – you guessed it – BMTC and Ms. MP; and, oh my goodness, what busy lives they were leading, all of it shared via tweets many times each day. I found it extremely amusing – when did they have time to actually work in between thumbing all those tweets, scanning the Internet for pseudo-intellectual information to share and attending all those social engagements? But their tweeting was also understandable since Twitter has, in fact, become a major way to sell yourself and your business by constantly blowing, um, tweeting your own horn.

Good for them, I thought. They were sell, sell, selling themselves relentlessly down the stream and, oh by the way, photos of a workshop they’d attended were posted on Flickr.

The temptation was too much for me – I am, after all, only human, and a very curious human, at that. So I took a look and…OMG!!!

The photos, for me, were like a roadside wreck. You know you shouldn’t gawk, but you can’t tear your gaze away. My jaw dropped and then…then I started to laugh and laugh and laugh. Not at the two people in the photos – the two real people shot candidly in the midst of what appeared to be anything but real-life happy moments – but at myself and the now truly ridiculous fantasy that had plagued me well past its sell-by date.

Here was an aging-not-all-that-well man with a paunchy belly and a sour expression on his face (an expression I’d seen often in the past).

Here was a rather large woman, tall and obviously overweight, wearing ill-fitting clothes and big-mistake glasses, her lips pursed, her arms crossed over her bosom (body language I recognized, as well).

Here were two people, supposedly together, yet not looking particularly happy about it – standing apart, sitting apart, gazing off in opposite directions.

Here was a slice of their real life caught on a digital camera, and it was so not the fantasy I’d conjured.

Interesting how life offers lessons at the exact moment we are ready to learn them. A year ago, I hadn’t been ready to let go of my fantasy. It seemed so…perfect. They seemed so…perfect, and I’d been envious.

Of course, I didn’t know them – or myself – quite as well as I do now….

My Brilliant Career(s) Part Two

You make the choices you make based on what you know about yourself and what you think you know about the world. And sometimes the world will turn around and break your heart, but other times...the reality of what you wound up with will suddenly seem like the only possible choice - it just couldn't have turned out any other way. ---Lisa Kogan

Emily’s House was published by Silhouette Books in June 1989. I deposited my first check from the publisher in a bank account with my name and my name only on it. I had finally earned a little money (very little!), and I intended to have a say over how it would be spent. My husband was furious about the bank account, but for the first time in 15 years of marriage I refused to back down. That bank account and my writing not only became the lifelines to which I clung as my marriage deteriorated, but also afforded me enough faith in myself to file for divorce shortly after my 50th birthday.

With 20 published novels to my name, divorced four years and trying desperately to get over the end of my relationship with Burning Man Traveling Companion, which had wounded me deeply, writing wasn’t working for me anymore. I was spending way too much time with imaginary people, I’d been “orphaned” at my publishing house, my agent seemed only vaguely interested in my works-in-progress, and the cost of health insurance, not to mention the cost of “supporting” Burning Man Traveling Companion for nine months, had taken a serious bite out of my savings. I needed to get out of the house. I needed to be with real people. I needed a dependable source of income. I needed a job with benefits.

In October 2005 I answered an ad for a reporter at the Observer Newspapers. I had no journalism experience at all, and I’d never written a news story in my life. But, really, I wondered, how hard could it be?

I got the job, and because the editor scared me half to death, I learned really fast how to write news stories – eight to 14 news stories each week, to be exact. I also got a social life, attending events all over Houston, then writing about them for the paper. For several months, I had the privilege of being the senior writer for Greater Houston Weekly, interviewing people like Milo Hamilton, Dr. John Lienhard and Wanda Sykes, reviewing restaurants and attending opening nights at various theaters around town. With an editorial change at GHW, my focus returned to the Obserever Newspapers, where I took on the job of police reporter. I loved having the opportunity to hone my skills and take my writing in a new direction, but the stress of looming deadlines week after week for more than a year, coupled with increasing editorial and staff changes, was also making me crazy.

When a job offer writing copy for a small local advertising agency landed in my lap, I accepted it without hesitation. The salary was almost too good to be true - more money than I’d ever earned. The work, I assumed, would be good, too – different from anything I’d done, but fun and creative. In fact, it was anything but fun and certainly not my idea of creative. I sat in a cave-like office (we were “encouraged” to turn off the lights to save electricity) and tried my best to think up interesting things to say about an IT company and a division of Halliburton. The owner and the three other employees kept to themselves, so there was no camaraderie at all. The only face-to-face time I had occurred when the owner grilled me on what I’d written, then verbally tore it all to shreds. Three weeks into the job, I walked into his office and quit. Lesson learned: Sometimes the money isn’t really worth it. That job is by far the worst job I’ve ever had in my life!

Once again unemployed, I approached my former editor, who was in the process of starting her own community newspaper, The Tribune. I offered to help out any way I could with her fledgling effort, and she turned me over to her graphic artist, instructing him to teach me the fine art of page layout and design. To say 27-year-old Rico, a graduate of the Art Institute of Houston, was aghast is putting it mildly. But he manned up, gave me a crash course in Photoshop and Adobe InDesign, and introduced me to a whole new kind of creativity that I absolutely loved.

Looking at a page as art was new to me, and putting together the puzzle of words and pictures was a challenge. Your focus had to be intense – we worked with 80’s rock music blasting in the background so we wouldn’t be distracted by the chatter in the newsroom. That page – getting it perfect – was everything. For a while, I also interviewed people and wrote stories for the paper, but as I got better at layout and design, I gladly gave up the writing. I worked with Rico Thursday-Monday, then loaded stories onto the paper’s Web site and updated the Web calendar on Tuesday. I was into the art, into the photographs, into the graphics. I was creating in a whole new way, and I was revitalized once again.

So why did I leave after only six months? Partly because I was only a part-time employee earning a small hourly wage, and partly because a job opened up at the Kingwood Library, the one place in my neighborhood where I’d always wanted to work.

It’s been 36 years since I first moved to the Houston area, and signing on as a full-time circulation assistant at the Kingwood Library two years ago, I seemed to have come full circle. My job at the library is the right one for me – the perfect one for me – at this time of my life. My fellow staff members are kind, generous and supportive, and I’m honored to be a part of the team. I thoroughly enjoy sharing my love of books and movies and music with people of all ages. I have a steady paycheck, benefits, and a generous amount of time off to work on my writing and photography, to travel, to visit with friends and family. I laugh every day (and occasionally moan and groan!). Most important of all, I feel good – heart and soul good - about the work I’m doing.

But really, darling, tell me…is the library your career now?

My dictionary’s definition of career is: The general course or progression of one’s working life or one’s professional achievements. Another definition is: A path or course, as of the sun through the heavens.

Well, yes, my job at the library is part of the general course of my working life – all that has come before has gotten me to where I am now, one small, often courageous step at a time - and it’s a darn good place to be. But my job is so much more than that. It has not only widened my life in unexpected ways; it is also an especially sunny spot along the length of it.

It’s where I’m at on my path, my course, my journey through earth school, and right here, right now, it’s the only place I want to be.

My Brilliant Career(s) Part One

I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. ---Diane Ackerman

The question was posed several months ago by an acquaintance from my romance writer days.

“Is the library your career now?” she asked.

My initial thought was that I’d never really considered any of the many jobs I’ve had in the past 47 years a “career.” Since I began babysitting our across-the-street neighbors’ four raucous, under-the-age-of-six boys at the age of 12, the right work for me has always seemed to materialize at exactly the right time. But had any of the work I'd done ever evolved into a bona fide career?

I’d added part-time sales clerk at the local department store to my resume shortly after my 16th birthday. The minuscule paycheck and 20% discount made it possible for me to buy a really delicious prom dress and an old rattletrap car and also save for college. Then, as a freshman at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, living at home, I used my learned-at-summer-school typing skills to snag a part-time job as an office clerk at American Cyanamid. Five afternoons a week, 2-5 p.m., I typed, filed, telexed, key punched and worked the switchboard. Skills honed, I was then able to work full-time all summer, filling in as my co-workers went on vacation. The money I earned at Cyanamid and the promise of a holiday/spring break/summer job there the next two years allowed me to transfer to the University of Missouri in Columbia to complete my degree in secondary education.

Working at Cyanamid made me realize that I much preferred working with adults to working with children, so following my graduation, after a half-hearted attempt to secure a teaching job, I gladly signed on as a full-time permanent employee there. My salary was much higher than I would have made as a teacher, I worked with people I liked a lot, and I was more than happy to stay there until I married and moved to Houston two years later.

My first job in Houston – believe it or not – was as a circulation assistant at the Houston Public Library on McKinney. How I loved that job! The books, the people, the old (for Houston) building, with its eerie back staircase, all in the heart of downtown… I started thinking about getting a master’s degree in library science, but the closest college to offer courses was Sam Houston State in Huntsville, and my husband quickly nixed the idea. In fact, he didn’t like the hours I worked, which included some nights and an occasional Saturday, and he didn’t like my salary, which was pretty low. Trying to keep the peace in my very young marriage, I quit after only nine months.

Temp work for Kelly Girl led me fairly quickly to my next job as secretary, answering to a gang of engineers at Marathon Marine Engineering Company. I loved that job, too. I was earning lots of money and working with people who respected me and appreciated my efforts. Within a year, I’d advanced to administrative assistant to the company president, a job I enjoyed for more than five years, until I left…in a snit.

Thirty years ago, things were a little different in corporate America. The glass ceiling was much lower, and as a result, many intelligent women, including me, were “kept in their place” by the men who always seemed to be in charge of everything. Back then, it was okay for me to fill in for the office manager while he was on vacation, in addition to keeping up with my administrative assistant duties, but there was no way my boss was going to give me the job when it became available. Of course, I didn’t know that until I asked for the job, fully expecting to get it, and my boss, a truly nice man, told me as kindly as he could that the office manager’s job was a man’s job, and he was going to have to hire a man to fill the vacancy.

To his credit, Mr. Bradbury offered to pay me the same salary, but his “no, dear, you can’t have the job” knocked my legs out from under me. I was stunned. Then I was hurt. Then I was truly angry. A month later, having found a job as an administrative assistant to the owners of Harvey Travel, I resigned.

I’d always wanted to travel around the world, and the opportunity to get my foot in the door at one of Houston’s premier travel agencies seemed like a good one. The owners “promised” they would let me train to be an agent – my ultimate goal – but first they wanted me to organize their extremely chaotic, messy office and catch up on their piles and piles of correspondence. Four weeks later, mission accomplished, I told them I was ready to start my travel agent training, but I soon realized it wasn’t going to happen. They wanted me to sit quietly in my tiny office, rearranging travel brochures, typing letters to a son’s camp counselor and/or making restaurant reservations.

Three months into the job, I found out I was pregnant, and a couple of months later, unwilling to pass up a chance to tour California for three weeks with my husband, I gladly resigned.

For eight years I was a stay-at-home mom. There was nothing I wanted to do more, and I loved (almost!) every minute of it. My lack of income earned me second-class-citizen status with my husband, however, and that was a terrible place to be for someone who had always paid her way. When my son was four years old, my husband went so far as to tell me that if I wanted a say in how money was spent in our household, then I had to earn it. Of course, he also made it clear that if I went back to work, I’d still be solely responsible for the care of our son. He was too involved in his “career” and earned too much money to have to take time off to attend to doctors’ appointments or pre-school pick-up, and he had no intention of spending his vacation time at home simply because, having started a new job, I wouldn’t be able to get away.

I'd always been an avid reader, and in 1984, desperate for an emotional outlet, I began to write. My good friend, Anna, offered encouragement and also got me started reading romance novels. The stories and the characters spoke to my heart, and within a few months, I began to explore the possibility of writing a story of my own. Here was a chance to work at home and (with luck!) earn a little money. Here was a chance to regain a little confidence in myself and my abilities....

Making space...

Surrounding ourselves with objects that speak to our souls brings us genuine pleasure. Still, a lot of us are numb to some objects that surround – dust gathering from past marriages and previous incarnations that have little connection to our present lives. Is your space filled with the excess baggage of old relationships…or of a self that you parted with long ago? Who is this woman who lives here? Are these things you? If they’re not, what are they doing in your most intimate, personal spaces? What are they doing in your house? –from Moving On by Sarah Ban Breathnach

Odds are you have one – mostly out of sight, often behind a closed door, yet lurking near enough that it’s never completely out of mind. You vow that one day soon you will do what needs to be done. You will face the hulking menace, once and for all. You will clean out that closet-, room-, basement-, garage-, or storage-unit-full-of-stuff.

Working as a reporter for the Observer Newspapers in 2004, I wrote an essay titled “Making a Place for the Good Stuff,” inspired by a weekend I’d spent cleaning out closets and cabinets.

Taking a look at everything I'd accumulated, I realized that I had more stuff than I could ever use, even if I wanted to – stuff I didn’t like much anymore or didn’t want or need much anymore. Perfectly good stuff, most of it gently used, some never used at all. Opening boxes and storage containers, I found things I’d been saving so long I’d forgotten why I’d bought them in the first place. Things someone less fortunate than I would love to have, and could have, if only I’d let loose of it all.

By Sunday evening, the trunk of my car was loaded with bags full of clothes, shoes, purses, wine glasses, sheets and towels, a quilt and matching pillows – all donated to the Humble Area Assistance Ministries (HAAM). Also on board were several bags of books – all donated to Friends of the Library Kingwood (FOLK).

In the years since my “big give,” I’ve managed to weed out stuff on a regular basis, hanging onto only those things I really want, really need and/or actually use. But there was one closet, the closet in my spare bedroom/office, mostly filled with special things – copies of my published novels, tear sheets from my news reporter days, partially completed manuscripts too dear to my heart to toss – that also held a lot of “excess baggage.”

There were three accordion-style folders full of e-mails chronicling relationships that had been important to me in the past. Originally, I’d printed and saved them as a diary. Then I’d thought about using them as the basis of a humorous book about the perils (and there are many!) of Internet dating after 50. Some of the experiences I'd had were pretty funny, but mostly, they were really sad.

I read a few snippets here and there and found myself wondering, “Who was that oh-so-eager-to-please person? Why did she put up with all that crap? Why didn’t she value herself more?” She hadn't lived in my space for a really long time - so long I barely recognized her - and as of yesterday, thanks my trusty shredder, neither does the baggage of the relationships she once had.

Next to go were reams (and reams) of paperwork from my divorce, including the meant-to-hurt, often hateful missives sent to me by my ex-husband during the nine months it took to be done with him. More than seven years later, the time had come to toss all that “excess baggage,” as well.

Several trips to the dumpster later, and dry-eyed once again (yes, there were a few tears – they washed away the last little bits of “dust”), I took a final look at my spare bedroom/office closet and realized that the papers I’d shredded hadn’t really taken up all that much room. But by getting rid of them, I’d opened up some space, not only physically, but also emotionally.

I remember hearing once that when you’ve opened up a little space in your life, the Universe takes note, and good things – like hopes and dreams fulfilled – are most likely to come your way.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of any other gift I’d rather give myself, as the New Year begins, than a little space waiting to be filled with good things….

Savoring a new year...again!

There’s something inherently optimistic about creating a fresh page, with the old wiped away and the new waiting to be written. –Gayle Goodson Butler

During a lull at the Kingwood Library circulation desk yesterday afternoon, Kim and I talked about our plans for the evening ahead – New Year’s Eve.

“Don’t go to bed early,” she warned. “Whatever you’re doing at midnight – that’s what you’ll be doing all next year.”

Wow! I wish someone had told me that a long time ago. Maybe then I wouldn’t have slept through such a large part of my life.

Not literally, you understand, but I now realize there were huge blocks of time when I wasn’t nearly as engaged in my life as I could have been. Instead of focusing on the right here, right now, in the present moment of my days, I sadly replayed the (why have I never done anything right?) past and worried myself silly about the (I’m going to end up living in a box under a bridge) future.

My 2008 resolution to savor life woke me up in ways I never imagined. You have to be present – you have to be aware – you have to be in the moment to truly savor all that life has to offer. My extremely astute therapist made a big difference, as well. She awakened in me a kinder, gentler understanding of myself, gave me the tools to tap into my potential, and opened my slammed-shut door to anything-is-possible.

Last night, I stayed up until (way past!) midnight. I poured a glass of my favorite wine – J. Lohr Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon – saluted 2009 with a smile, and opened the fortune cookie I’d brought home from the Chinese restaurant.

On the scrap of paper was written “trust your intuition” – a validation if ever there was one. Trusting (finally!) my intuition the past year has made all difference for me, and yes, it has also brought me good fortune.

To do in 2009 – not surprisingly, I will continue to savor life and I will continue to trust my intuition. I will also make one new friend (hey you – yes, you – I’ve got my eye on you!); I will spread good cheer; and I will remember the old Chinese proverb, “If you keep the green bough in your heart, then the singing bird will come.”

If Kim was right, I will be smiling a lot, as well; enjoying fine wine; and opening myself to all sorts of good fortune.

A new year is beginning, full of promise. May we have our best year ever; may we love as deeply and laugh as often as we can; and may we do at least one thing we’ve always dreamed we’d do….

Happy 2009, y'all!