doahleigh - Holy Waste of Teabags!

Yesterday Brad and I met with a financial advisor. I’ve always been pretty frugal with money, but I felt like I needed to make sure I was on the right track. I wanted to know if there was anything else I should be doing, financially, at this point in my life. Besides making a hell of a lot more money than I am right now.

The financial advisor was very nice, but he basically told us he couldn’t help us. Not because we’re a hopeless case but because we’re doing all we should be doing right now. Essentially. He helps his clients with six different areas, and at this point in our lives, we only need help with one of those. He said he’d be ripping us off if we “hired” him to help us. So basically he sat with us for just over an hour and told us to listen carefully because we were about to get a lot of free advice. We listened carefully and asked questions, and he said we could keep in touch if we had any more. And that was it.

While I’m glad he was honest enough not to rip us off, I have to admit I was a little disappointed. Honestly, what I want is for someone to walk me through everything. Hold my hand and tell me what to do. Don’t say “Maybe you want to open another savings account or perhaps a money market account,” but instead tell me “Go to your bank, open a money market account, put $100 a month in it.” Specific directions, that’s what I was hoping for.

One of the things that prompted me to talk to him was that I need to buy a new car. I’ve driven used cars for ten years, and if you’ve been reading for the last few months you know my current used car has been frequently rebelling. It’s time to get something reliable. Only first I need to find an extra few hundred dollars in my monthly “budget” to pay for it. When I mentioned this to the financial advisor, he asked if I had considered leasing.

Why no, I haven’t. Everyone I know buys and has always told me that’s the way to go. But so far what I’ve read about leasing and what I heard from this guy sounds pretty good to me. The mileage limitations kind of suck, but it’s not like I’m planning a cross-country road trip. And other than that, I can’t find any other catches. Obviously I’m missing something. Gotta be, right?

I’m not good at making these kinds of decisions alone. That’s why I need help. Not someone to make the decision for me, but lots of people to give me lots of input. Please, even if you don’t normally comment, I really need advice and suggestions. Horror stories of your leasing (or buying) experiences. This is not another desperate attempt to reveal my readership, I’m so over that right now. But part of the reason people blog is to connect with so many more people than you do in your ‘real’ life. That’s what I need now.

Please, help me figure out the age old question: buy or lease?

B: [Burps and makes a munching noise (like when you pretend to eat the fake plastic food your niece has fake prepared for you)]

S: Gross! That is disgusting!

B: What?

S: You burped and then munched on your burp chunks.

B: My burp chunks! I was not munching on burp chunks. I was just… you know… tasting my burp.

S: Oh yeah that’s so much better. I might have to blog about this ya know?

B: Yeah great, tell everyone about our blagh hack ack hagh.

That’s when he started having a coughing fit. I’m pretty sure he was choking on his burp chunks.

My mom has the amazing gift of premonition. She gets “feelings” about things, about what should happen and what will happen, and we all pretty much trust her premonitions. So much so that when she says “I have a feeling a red propeller plane is going to crash into the neighbors roof someday soon,” we all start watching the sky, assuming there will be a red propeller plane above our heads. If I’m wondering about something (Should I move to Africa? Will grandma’s surgery go okay?), I ask her if she has any feelings about it, and I cross my fingers that she does. She doesn’t have premonitions about everything, she’s not a prophet after all, but when she does, I believe her “feelings” whole-heartedly.

I, however, did not genetically inherit this gift. Quite the opposite actually as I have no idea what people mean when they tell me to listen to my gut. Gut reactions, maybe, that’s more like instinct. But gut feelings, as in intuition, as in ”My gut tells me to take the train this time instead of flying,” are foreign to me. That’s why I struggle so much with every little decision. My gut fails me everytime, and I’m left with nothing but logic to work through my choices. And when there is no obviously logical answer, I’m basically wandering around in the dark without a flashlight. I just don’t get gut feelings.

I also don’t smoke. I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life. Once in 7th grade, a somewhat rebellious girl who had somewhat befriended me, offered me a cigarette. Not a lit one, just one to take home and try sometime. So I took it and stashed it underneath the cardboard in an old perfume box set, which I then buried under some clothes in my bottom dresser drawer. It stayed there for years until most of the tobacco had fallen out of the paper. I used to take it out and fondle the thing paper now and then, but I never once had a true desire to smoke it. And other than that brief and insignificant brush with the smoker’s life, I’ve never even been tempted. It doesn’t appeal to me in the least.

(For awhile, I did smoke cigars occassionally, without inhaling of course, and I still enjoy a cigar now and then in the right environment. But I find cigarettes absolutely appalling.)

You wouldn’t think these two things were connected, the missing gut feelings and the lack of desire to ever smoke. And I didn’t think so either until this morning. On my drive to work, some radio DJ told me about a few patients who had received damage to a certain part of their brain. When they came out of a coma, they no longer had the desire to smoke. At all. They didn’t even think about it.

Doctors toyed with the idea of tinkering with that part of the human brain in order to allow long-time smokers to shake their addiction. However, they discovered that that is the same part of the brain that controls our gut reactions.

So as you can see, I have brain damage. Apparently I was dropped a lot as a child, or perhaps my brother hit me in the head a few too many times when we were growing up. Which is why I not only stress out about every little decision I have to make, but why I can’t have a cigarette to take the edge off when I’m about to jump out a window from the struggle.

One thing I’ve learned to hate in my life is having to get the oil changed in my car. I know this is just a routine thing that every vehicle owner deals with every 3 months or 3,000 miles and so what’s the big deal? Just take it to a quick lube, 15 minutes later you’re on your way. But somehow in my 10 years of driving, the routine oil change has become an unbearable annoyance to me. A volcanic forehead pimple on prom night. Ten thousand fucking spoons when all you need is one damn knife.

Pathetic Alanis references aside, I really do hate getting my oil changed, and I have gone to great lengths to avoid doing it and to pawn the responsibility off on someone else. Anyone else. Once I let my little sister’s punk boyfriend change it in his garage. When he mentioned he had trouble locating the oil filter, I knew I probably should have visited a professional, but this way at least I didn’t have to figure our when or where else to go.

Another time my youngest sister, who had just gotten her license and maybe shouldn’t have been trusted alone behind the wheel quite yet, mentioned that she was going to the mall. I actually paid my sister to drive my car to the mall, 30 minutes away, because she agreed to get the oil changed on the way. I HATE getting my oil changed. Hate. It.

So when my odometer spun around to a number almost a thousand miles higher than the sticker in the corner of my windshield indicated, I begged desperately for Brad’s help. The last few times I’ve gone, he has kindly accompanied me to lessen my burden. But this time I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I was ready to throw my car away before I faced the burden of yet another oil change. What I really wanted was for him to take my car away from me one day and bring it back all oil changed and 20-point inspectioned, no questions asked. I was even willing to pay him (in whatever form of currency he preferred) to do this for me.

And bless the boy, that’s exactly what he did. He traded vehicles with me today, got the oil changed in my car AND got it washed, and he didn’t even ask for payment. Although, there may be a special treat for him later tonight.*

I don’t think he realizes how much of a help this was. I can’t explain why oil changes are such a sore spot in my life, there is no good explanation. But to have that burden and responsibility lifted from me, at least for another 3 months or 3,000 miles, has somehow made today seem a little brighter and a bit more bearable.

Thank you hon. No seriously, have I said thank you yet? Because thank you. I mean it. Thank you so much.

*Ice cream

Today we’re celebrating around here: It’s my one year blogiversary! Technically I started out about two and a half years ago on LiveJournal, but it was in January of last year that I decided I wanted my own space, my very own web home. So Brad got me all set up and it was on January 24, 2006 that I wrote this little ditty about butt sex. The drink. Oh what a way to start. It’s been a good year though. Thanks to everyone who stuck around and those you have stopped by. I look forward another fun year.

To celebrate, I did two things: 1)Asked Brad to make me a new banner (see above). 2)Got a shot in the arm today!

And guess who I ran into at the doctor’s office. My old friend, Stone Cold Nurse! The lady who was called in before me got a nice nurse, one who practically sang her name when she called it and who bothered to ask how the patient was doing today. I got SCN who barked my name and in place of “How are you?” grunted something about come this way. I did my best to ignore her while she blankly took my weight, blood pressure and pulse, but when she accidentally slammed the door against the wall on her way out, we finally had a good laugh together. A good laugh meaning I giggled uncomfortably and she fumbled around trying to close the door.

I guess I assumed my doctor was going to administer the shot, so when the doctor came in alone I thought, Oh good, no nurse to “assist” this time. She talked for a few minutes about this and that, then suddenly stood up from her stool and said, “Okay, she’ll be in here in a minute!”

Who? Where? Who’s coming in here? You’re not doing the shot! Oh god, don’t tell me it’s…

Stone Cold Nurse walked in moments later, syringe in hand, scowl on face. Part of me wanted to knock her down as I bolted out to my car. Forget the shot, who knows where she’ll want to jab me with that thing! Shots scare me enough without an unsympathetic person wielding the needle. But I have to say, I’ve come a long way in my ability to chill the fuck out. Last time I had a shot, over ten years ago, I almost threw up and then I almost fainted. Basically I almost passed out in a pool of my own vomit at the thought of being stuck with a needle. I can’t even watch someone get a shot on tv without violently turning my face away. The mere sight of needles makes me weak.

Today, however, I was strong. Nervous, but strong. When SCN asked me if I was a fainter, do I need to sit down? I proudly said No, I’ll be fine. Of course then she had to ask me to relax my arm because I was gripping the counter like it was the only thing keeping me from a terrifying fall to my death. But I really was fine. And I think that says a lot for how far I’ve come since I was a weak, whiny 8th grader. Long way baby.

In high school I was sort of an anomaly, in that, whereas most high schoolers only think they know everything, I really did. Okay maybe I didn’t know everything there is to know in the world, that’s impossible. And while I’ve certainly learned a lot about life since then (like how to use a condom and the difference between gross and net income (although I still confuse the two sometimes)), I still hold that I was different because almost everything I thought I knew then turned out to be right.

For instance, somehow I had the forsight to really understand that those years could be the best of my life. Unlike most teenagers who scoff at adults that tell them to enjoy it while it lasts, I firmly grasped that I had better appreciate every moment because eventually life might really suck.

I’m not saying life sucks now, but I am saying that sometimes I miss the bliss of adolescent angst. Back then I was actually glad that my worst problem was figuring out how to break up with Matt (over the phone) or what to wear to my first Homecoming dance (a painfully inappropriate corduroy skirt), because I was brilliantly aware that someday I’d be dealing with much bigger, much suckier problems.

What I’m saying, in the most light-hearted way I can manage, is that in the face of some pretty hefty problems I’m currently trying to solve, I kind of wish all I had to worry about was whether my long black double-slitted skirt, hiked up over my boobs to create a sultry strapless dress, would be too risque for our performance of “Spice Up Your Life” at senior year band camp (no, Posh is supposed to be sultry and risque).

Brad and I are faced with a multitude of decisions to make in the near future, all of which affect the others, and all of which must eventually come together in some kind of neatly packaged solution. Sparing all the boring details, I’ll just say that there are four essentials that need to come together for us by August. For simplicity’s sake we’ll call them A B C and D.

It’s nearly impossible for all four to coincide perfectly, but we’re determined there must be a way. Because if not, we’re wasting a lot of energy on nothing. However, in order to be flexible, we’ve tried to prioritize the four elements. What’s the most important? The least?

I guess A and B are the most important, essential to our livelihood even. But we already have A and B now, and that’s not enough. Since C and D can’t easily happen from where we’re at, we’d have to move to make them happen. And the whole point is to accomplish all four, so if we just stay in the A and B we’re in now, we’ll sacrifice C and D and therefore really acheive nothing. So okay, we must make C and D happen. But we can’t just up and move where C and D are available because without A and B, we can’t even afford C and D, and then the whole idea is moot.

Maybe we should shoot for A, definitely A, and we can sacrifice C for now, or at least back burner it. B is pretty important, and D is essential to improving B. So okay, now we have A B and D as the imperative elements. Well we have a possible plan for D, which is good, but we won’t know if it’s going to work until May. May is way too late to figure out A, which is starting to look like the most imporant thing, so we can’t wait until May to settle A. Now what? I don’t know, I’m at a complete loss on how to solve my life…

I know someday we’ll be on the other side of this; someday we’ll have all four letters lined up and we’ll look back at our confusion and know that it wasn’t for nothing. There is an answer and eventually we’ll know what it is.

But right now I almost wish I was still in high school where A B C and D were grades on a report card, not the baffling elements of my life.

This is the kind of thing that only happens in poorly written novels. The kind of thing that you read and then say out loud, “Oh come on, that’s so ridiculous! That lends no credibility or believability to the story whatsoever!” Or at least that’s what I say, maybe you don’t talk to yourself when you read.

Over the weekend I was looking for new walking shoes. A friend/coworker and I have decided to get off our lazy asses and move once in awhile. We work at a college and have free access to the indoor track, yet neither of us was taking advantage of that, instead opting to go home and eat ice cream in front of the tv right after work. That’s just me, I guess I shouldn’t speak for my friend/coworker.

Unavoidable events prevented us from walking the first couple weeks we tried it, but finally, last week, we walked after work. A whole 50 minutes of non-stop walking. It was great, fun even! Except holy crap my feet hurt when we were done.

I’ve had the same tennis shoes for the last seven years, shoes that I’ve loved and have put to good use. Only I hadn’t realized that the interior of each shoe was wearing away so much that the back of my feet were rubbing against plastic the whole 50 minutes, which of course makes for blistery, bloody heels. Which makes for me wishing I had gone home to watch tv and eat ice cream instead of walking.

Time for new shoes.

I spent two shopping trips looking for shoes I could live with. The only problem is that people like Nike and New Balance and Reebok have absolutely no idea what I can live with. They design shoes like these, where white is the couleur du jour, occassionally accented with pink or teal. Or they get fancy with your feet, creating wild designs that nobody should ever be caught wearing. All I wanted was something relatively simple, understated, and please God not white. White shoes are fine if that’s what you like, please don’t think I’m judging your footwear, they’re just not for me. Instead I really wanted, needed even, something primarily grey.

Don’t be fooled by what you see on those websites. The stores around here only carry a few select styles, ALL of which are primarily white. Finally, on the second day, I found something I could live with. They were Dr. Scholl’s, which, in name alone made me feel 80 years old, and they also looked a little too middle-aged Jazzercise for me. But they were inexpensive and tolerable, so I brought them home.

However, I wasn’t completely satisfied. So later that night, while shopping with Brad, I wandered over to the footwear section of Target where I happened to notice a pair of grey tennis shoes that I liked even better than the ones I had.

Oh they’re probably much more than I want to spend, I thought. Wait, they’re only $27.99, I can afford that!

Oh but they probably don’t even have my size. Eights are suprisingly difficult to find, I pondered. But what’s this? A size eight, right here in front of me!

Well they probably won’t be as comfortable as the Dr. Scholl’s shoes because come on, this is Dr. Scholl we’re talking about, I said to myself. Well oh my, they fit like a dream, and indeed, it’s as if Dr. Scholl made them himself!

Obviously this was my perfect shoe, yet I wasn’t quite convinced I should go through the trouble of returning the other pair. Weren’t those just as good? Were these shoes really worth it? I needed a sign, something to confirm that these shoes were divinely made just for me.

Then I glanced at the box, and there in black in white, staring back at me, was my answer.
Shoe size: 8
Shoe style: Shannon

The shoes that had practically called my name really had practically call my name. Har har. Also, I swapped out the grey laces in the first pair for the white laces in these. Now, they’re just about perfect. They get the official walk test today after work. I hope they pass.

One very important characteristic of a good leader is humility.

I was asked to be a speaker on a panel at the Martin Luther King Jr. Future Leadership Summit this weekend. Because of my line of work, I spoke specifically about the importance of leadership through public service and volunteerism, and the whole day was focused around the importance of stepping up to lead whenever and however possible.

So when they asked for a volunteer to lead a large group of participants from one building to another, I stepped up and offered to take the lead. After all, the event was being held on the college campus at which I work. Granted, neither the building I was leading from nor the one I was leading to was the one in which I work, but still, I thought I was capable of guiding this group across campus.

Or not. I did successfully lead them through the hall and down the stairs, but then somehow I took a wrong turn and we ended up on the wrong side of the building. I had to turn the whole herd around and guide them back through the building to the other side, all the while enduring wisecracks about what kind of leader is this who can’t even get us from point A to B on her own campus!

Yes that’s me, you’re humble leader. Now if you’ll just follow me this way, please, I’ll be happy to lead you right off this very tall cliff.

Often, when I’m annoyed or upset, I vent to Brad, and often when I do this he tries to solve my problem for me, and often that just really annoys the hell out of me. Usually I just want to vent, to be understood and to have my feelings validated. Validate my feelings damn it!

So today when I heard about a little thing called empathic listening, I thought Hey, this could work for us. Through my job, I’m enrolled in a Leadership Academy in which, each week, some ‘expert’ or another tries to teach us some skill or another of effective leadership. You know, think win/win, synergy, that kind of thing. Today we learned about empathic listening, in which one tries to understand what another is saying without evaluating or asking a lot of questions. The point, basically, is to truly understand what someone is saying because really, isn’t that what we all want in the end? To be understood?

You’re supposed to repeat what the talker says without probing or analyzing or interpreting. Just repeat, or maybe offer silence and a gentle head nod, and allow them to continue talking. After the explanation in class, they gave us a few phrases to use (”What I’m hearing is…”), coupled us up, and instructed us to role play.

My conversation went something like this:

Anonymous Partner: I’m just really unhappy at work lately, and I’m thinking about getting out of it to try something new. I got into this business so I could create, and lately it’s become so administrative that it no longer feels creative. And I’m just really frustrated about what to do.
Me: So it sounds like you’re frustrated at work because it’s become more administration and less creative.
AP: Yeah…
Me: …
AP: [blink]
Me: [blink]
Me: Okay that was fun.

It was not effective at all. Nobody felt understood, nobody felt validated, and everybody felt like robotic morons.

I see the value of what empathic listening is trying to accomplish, but the techniques it suggests seem artificial. Nobody feels good when you nod at them in silence or regurgitate the words they’ve said. Yet, I thought I’d try this out with Brad, see how it goes. So I asked him to tell me about something we had talked about many times: the obnoxious instructor in one of his courses. Normally when we talk about this, we have great conversations. There’s ranting and raving, there are questions and answers, suggestions on how to approach the problem. Very productive. Witness the effect empathic listening had on the situation:

Brad: She’s just such a bad instructor. She has no control over the classroom, she lets a few select students dominate the conversation, letting them ramble on and on about nothing that pertains to the class. And the rest of us just sit there, frustrated that we’re not learning anything.
Me: So it sounds like you’re frustrated with your instructor because of her classroom conduct.
Brad: Um… yeah.
Me: Well okay.

Nothing. No validated feelings, no understanding, and definitely no solutions. Now you may think that perhaps we’re just doing this wrong and that’s why it’s not working. But the ‘expert’ demonstrated for us in class, and her conversation went about the same. Except after the talker said “Um, yeah” the instructor silently nodded until her head fell off.

In the end, I don’t think empathic listening is for me. All I really want is to be understood and validated, but it takes a little more than silent nods and regurgitated words to accomplish that. I need something a little more, something like: “Well that is just absurd! I will kill the person that made you feel this way. You are precious and beautiful and the most important person on earth, and you deserve nothing but happiness. Come here baby.”

Well you all failed me miserably. Everyone else in the blog world had a raging success with their de-lurk prompts, but mine sat there at the top of the page for FIVE days while hundreds and hundreds of readers passed by it, and only five people took a second to say hello, four of which are faithful commenters, only one of which was a first-timer. Thank you Teena, and thank you to the other four.

To everyone else… I guess I just need to accept that my audience is shy. You don’t like the spotlight, you don’t like to be called out. You’re like the quiet student in class who has a brain full of great thoughts and ideas, but you prefer to keep them to yourself rather than share them out loud for all the class to hear. You’re quiet, you’re passive, you’re recluse. I can accept that. Or I can try. Unless you feel like sharing one of those thoughts, then just know that I’d love to hear it.

On any other day I might not be so forgiving, but today, today I got a surprise day off and therefore, I’m pretty much willing to forgive anyone for any transgressions. Talk about me behind my back? Forgiven. Steal my ideas and present them as your own? Whatev. Cheat on me with a smokin’ hot girl? I’ll cut your man parts off and throw them out the window. (I know that would never happen.)

It all started Sunday night when mid-Michigan was slammed with an ice storm. The kind that comes in as innocent wet rain and leaves everything frozen in a layer of ice. Monday morning I had to go into work because the roads weren’t bad, as long as you could agiley navigate around the fallen trees and downed power lines. I got there safely, only to find that the entire campus had lost power 30 minutes earlier. They decided to continue with the scheduled in-service while we all sat in a dark cafeteria staring at a slideshow powered by a generator. Finally at 11:30 they sent us home to sleep, relax, and slide around on the ice. Which makes me a very happy person.

Of course, it’s easy for me to enjoy all this from the warmth of my brightly lit apartment, while I heat up some oatmeal in the microwave, watch Judging Amy and fire up my computer. Apparently over 20,000 people were without power last night and still are today, including most of Brad’s family. Also including the college where I’m employed. Which is why, when I turned on the tv this morning at 7am, I realized with great satisfaction, that I got to crawl back into bed and sleep until all the ice had melted. Or at least until 10:30.

As a rule, I hate Michigan winters. I hate snow, I hate ice, I hate cold. One day I’ll go into all the many reasons I hate winters here, but for now, suffice it to say, I was thrilled with the unseasonal weather we had all through November and December. Loved the lack of snow, the warmer temperatures, the singing birds. And I dreaded the day that real winter would rear its ugly head and fall upon our happily warm world. Now that it’s here, I’m definitely not thrilled knowing that it won’t leave again until March, but at least for this one day, this day that I’m sitting at home in my pajamas instead of at a desk in scratchy work clothes, I have to admit: I really love it!

(But just for today. Don’t get excited honey. I still HATE winter.)

Hmm… what should I write about today? Nothing noteworthy is going on right now and nothing really funny has happened recently. I guess I don’t have to write anything, it’s not like I’m getting paid for this. And it’s not like everyone’s going to stop paying attention to me if I skip a day. I skip days all the time!

But I hate when the blogs I read regularly aren’t updated daily. I mean okay, take the weekend off, but during the week I need something to read! So I should probably try to offer the same.

Let’s see, let’s see. What to write. Maybe I could write about the delicious baked potato I had for dinner last night. What? No, nobody wants to read about that. Let’s see, what about how frustrated I am with my car again? No no, I’m sure everyone is sick of reading about my stupid car problems.

Well I guess I’ll just read some other blogs, who knows, maybe someone has an idea I can steal. Okay, oh haha, that’s funny. But no, nothing to steal here. Next. Okay, now here I am at Quarter Life Crisis, Jen’s always got something good to say. La de da oh what’s this? “De-lurking is Delightful”? Why yes it certainly is.

Well looky here, it seems to be National De-lurking Week. Ah ha, an idea! Maybe I could just steal this here graphic… yep got it. Okay now if I just place it on my own blog, there we go, now I can officially ask people to step up and stop lurking. Genius, thanks for the idea Jen!

Look you guys, I’m not asking you to become all paticipatory and start commenting every day and emailing me and becoming my friend or anything. Even though that would be great too. All I want is to know who’s reading. I’ve tried this before, tried to draw out the shy ones, but to very little avail.

In the last couple months my number of visitors has increased and I don’t know why. I know of some friends, some family, some fellow-bloggers who check in regularly, but aside from them… who are you other hundreds of readers?

Please honor National De-lurking Month and say hi. Just this one time and then I’ll leave you alone. For awhile.