hug an elephant
see the northern lights
leave the house on a bike and come back after traveling the country
count everything I own made in china
move to hawaii
learn how to whistle really loud with my fingers

oh Mr. Softee
I can hear your siren song
and your cones, so sweet

I’ve had a rough couple of weeks at work. Actually, I’ve had a rough five months or so. My job is total chaos all the time, and despite being currently understaffed, I still feel like it’s not going to improve much even when my new hire gets up to speed. They don’t really care whether anyone there has a life or not, whether every day is spent at break neck speeds, running around like a chicken with its head cut off just to get the bare minimum done, choking down lunch at your desk, checking emails from home, staying until 7, 8, 9 o’clock. It’s expected, and no one gives a shit. The work needs to get done and that’s that. Every email I get (and I get hundreds a day) starts with, “I know you’re crazy busy, but…” and ends with, “this really can’t wait any longer, it needs to be done now.”

I am totally miss nice guy at work. I am so nice, the sun shines out my ass. I break my ass to get stuff done, even when it’s not even necessarily my job. I cover for everyone else’s mistakes, I spend hours sorting out issues that are the result of other people’s incompetencies. And yet, in the middle of all the current chaos, the two times I have told people that something can’t be done in the time they want it to be done, they get absolutely furious and demand that it get done.

I come home crying several times a week, I cried in the bathroom twice today and outside once, I have headaches all day, I can’t relax at night, all I think about is having to go back to that goddamn place the next morning. Yet whenever I mention to someone that I might have to just get up and leave one of these days, they immediately say, “Whoa, well, you can’t just do that.” Now granted, I know I can’t just do that. I wouldn’t just do that, I’m not that type of person. I know that if I left tomorrow, everyone I work with would be totally screwed because no one knows how to really do my job, and it’s an integral job. I’ve been there for almost nine years, and I’m not a shitty person. But still, why is it so unnacceptable to just hit that point where you’re mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore? Through everything, you’re just expected to keep smiling and being polite, and not complaining too much, and playing nice with everyone. And whenever I mention “just quitting” to anyone, despite the fact that Greg and I have talked about it a hundred times and decided that financially we’d be ok for a while, the solution is immediately, “Well why don’t you look for a new job?” or “Well you have to make sure you have all your ducks in a row first.” What happened to good old fashioned leaping before you look?

You should really read this editorial on the Huffington Post written by a woman who was on the flight with the Jet Blu flight attendant. It pretty much says exactly what I’ve been feeling – that through all the frustration you face in every day life, you’re never allowed to have a meltdown.

So I don’t know, it remains to be seen whether I’ll just storm out. Probably not. But I just hate for people to immediately take that option away from me.

Last weekend was a much more successful camping trip than the one we did two years ago. We were far more prepared, with good food and conveniences. I think camping is a learning experience, and each time you get better at it. The campground was pretty nice – clean bathrooms with showers and a little area to wash your dishes. Here is what we did better this time:

- we went to Target and bought a big rubbermaid bin to keep all our camping supplies in, along with a bunch of other stuff that will live in the bin permanently
- some of the supplies include some malamine dishes, a jar of sugar, a jar of coffee, salt and pepper shakers, a set of silverware, a small box of plastic silverware, ziploc bags in various sizes, tin foil, plastic wrap, tongs, napkins, a roll of paper towels, candles, a few garbage bags, bug spray, and antibacterial hand wipes
- i made a big batch of potato salad and brought a bagged salad mix and we just had burgers one night and sausages the next night. for breakfast we ate cereal out of tupperware containers. very simple.

My favorite and proudest moment of preparation was bringing a french press! It was so lovely to wake up and have coffee. Of course we don’t have a propane stove or anything, so I came up with the ingenious idea of bringing a small kettle and heating the water over 3 little jarred candles pushed together. It took a good 20 minutes to heat the water, but it was so worth it to enjoy a little taste of dark roast in the great outdoors. It felt like a lovely luxury.

The one thing we didn’t anticipate were the flies! They were terrible. One of the people camping near us said they always bring Yard Guard spray and spray down the campsite. Not particularly environmentally friendly I suppose, but the flies were really enough to drive you insane at times.

We also forgot to bring games! We wound up buying a deck of cards, but next time we’ll bring our travel Scrabble set.

The lighting situation wasn’t that great – all we had were 2 small battery powered lanterns, a few candles and a couple of flashlights. Next time I might bring a string of lanterns to hang from a tree, since a lot of camp sites have electrical outlets.

All in all a good time was had by all. We talked about going again in July, hopefully it won’t be too hot. I’d also love to get some friends together to go, I think it would really make it more fun.

I’m having some people over after work tomorrow, and of course now I’m looking around and seeing the house through other people’s eyes. I’m feeling a little discouraged over the fact that not one single room in our house is finished. Sure, everything is more or less livable, but almost every room is no more than 50% done – things need to be painted, hung, cleaned, rearranged, fixed, etc. It’s a very tough choice between focusing on big projects so the rooms can be more livable versus taking one room and doing every little detail. I really go back and forth between the two philosophies, and as a result am pretty much nowhere. Not sure what to do about this one.

FIRST FLOOR

Entryway
- wallpaper vestibule
- retile vestibule
- hooks for coats, etc

Living Room
- hang stuff on the walls
- paint and put legs on record cabinet
- paint fireplace
- finish painting stairs
- hang stuff in stairwell

Powder Room
- new floor
- wallpaper
- new toilet
- curtains

Dining Room
- new rug
- paint hutch
- hang more stuff on walls
- new dining chairs
- new sideboard

Kitchen
- shelf for cookbooks
- organize cabinets
- curtain

SECOND FLOOR

Hallway
- finish painting hallway
- hang stuff in hallway
- paint stairs
- bookcase for hallway
- get rid of desk

Guest Room
- rewire electric
- new drywall
- demo wall air conditioner
- paint
- new futon
- dresser
- curtains
- rug
- new door

Bathroom
- new vanity
- paint
- rewire
- regrout tub
- new shower head
- curtains

Potential Laundry Room
- paint
- put in shelves
- new door

Bedroom Closet
- paint
- put in shelves

Bedroom
- hang shelves
- hang artwork
- curtains
- rug
- paint night tables

THIRD FLOOR

Hallway
- paint stairs
- paint hallway
- hang stuff in hallway
- table for top of stairs

Craft Room
- better storage bins
- paint trim
- curtains
- rug

Office
- hang stuff on walls
- better desk storage
- new filing cabinet
- get rid of old computer

Outside
- new roof
- paint front door
- paint trim around front window and door
- house numbers
- paint back door

I’ve been going around and around about this stuff in my head and with Greg lately, with lots of tears, uncertainty, and general crippling fear. I just stumbled on this blog entry that I need to add to my list of affirmative readings:

How to make a living doing what you love

I’m starting this in earnest. Now that the summer is here, it’s more conducive to being out and about on artist dates and generally less oppressive to my mood than winter.

The thing that’s tricky about the Artist’s Way is that the book is sort of all over the place. It’s really hard to decipher the actual activities from the reading. For example, there will be a heading like, “This Week’s Exercises” except then sprinkled throughout the chapter in other places she’ll give directions to do things – like, “Write down all your blurts” or “Read through these principles every day”. And generally it’s a little incoherent and not a strict “process” per se. Not that her ideas aren’t great – I find myself wanting to highlight every other sentence. But rather than a step by step process, it seems more just like a general book of affirmations arbitrarily split into chapters and exercises.

I’ve also already started this like three times, so I have a couple of lists already of my artistic enemies, my letter to the editor on behalf of myself, my other lives, etc. So the start is a little anticlimactic. I don’t know why I haven’t been able to keep up with it – I think the Artist Date always foils me. But like I said, now that the weather is warm I can see myself getting out by myself more.

So if all goes according to plan, I’ll be ready to quit my job and open a gallery by September