Saturday, August 13, 2011

Woe was me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aahtK6W7l78

I had been stuck in the funk that I recently wrote about. Willpower wasn't enough to get me through it.

Today, I woke up feeling pretty good--I wonder if it was the days wallowing in self pity that got me through.

It reminds me of something I learned studying for the New York bar exam. When I got too stressed, I'd imagine the worse: I'm going to flunk, I'll never pass, I'll never be able to get a job. Somehow giving myself permission to worry allowed me to get beyond my troubles and back to work. (I passed.)

Allowing myself to feel sorry for poor, poor pitiful me with my ten thousand troubles and million woes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRv_FLqvnR4 helped me look beyond myself. I guess I got bored with my troubles and woes. I know I'm a lucky and privileged person. I've got skills, resources and support, therefore, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OO9LloDSJo


Monday, August 8, 2011

Happy Birthday Lucy!

One day late.

Lucille Ball would have been 100 years old yesterday. TCM named her star of the day. Hallmark ran a marthon of I Love Lucy episodes focusing on California, Europe and Connecticut.

I'm much more interested in I Love Lucy than Ball's movie career. The California episodes make up my favorite story line. LA at Last, with William Holden is my favorite episode. I missed some of my other favorite Hollywood shows with John Wayne and Richard Widmark. But I did catch the cheese episode, my favorite of the Europe story line, when Lucy tries to disguise 25 pounds of cheese as a baby on a transcontinental flight.

The Connecticut episodes never particularly appealed to me, but I love the barbecue episode. This morning I rediscovered the episode in which Lucy, Fred and Ethel pretend to be gangsters to get the Ricardos out of their purchase of the Connecticut house. It was awesome.

Lucy was a comedic genius. Desi also had his moments as a performer and was a great producer.

Happy Birthday Lucy.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

It's the Little Things...

that mean a lot.

When you're in the middle of a funk, you look to small things that make you happy.

Spike gave me many: a tilt of his head, a smile, the way he looks at me with his stuffed cow Eleanor in his mouth when he wants me to chase him.

Taylor Farm offered a particularly blue sky, the heron in the tidal pond, a salty sea breeze off the sound that brought back memories of rising and falling in the gentle swells of the Atlantic.

Little things keep me going.

Out of Balance

I thought awhile about the title of this post; should I say off-balance or out of balance? I decided that off-balance connotes a temporary condition, e.g. standing on one leg. My condition has lasted longer than off-balance--I must be out of balance.

It's been almost three weeks since my last post. I started one but actually fell asleep over the keyboard. I'm not getting enough sleep. I've only been to the gym three times in three weeks. Recent heat waves have wiped me out. 

The worst part is that I did much of this to myself. I've let a series of annoying things throw me off track. Instead of a knock-out punch, I was jabbed and poked at from all directions until I fell.

It's on me to figure out how to stay on my feet, ignore the accumulation of mundane, annoying problems and just keep on going.