Categories
don't speak...don't speak!

posting it here … no turning back

I started peeling the paint off of my kitchen cabinets the other day. It was kind of like therapy in a way. I could, if patient and attentive, peel the paint off in one entire piece. It was kind of rubbery when it did come off. Of course if I went to fast it would break. But I could grab the next piece and continue. Here is a big piece of it I pulled from the trash. It’s very smooth. Almost like a very thin piece of vinyl. Very nice!

Under that is another layer, well let’s say several layers under the first. But they don’t seem to want to just roll off like the top layer. Now I don’t know my paint at all. Which in itself could be an entirely different post. But why did this first layer peel off so easily? Literally any nick would scratch the surface and you could peel away! My random guess, wrong kind of paint to cover what was there. Cause the rest, ain’t giving up that easily.

So why put all this here, every where? As mentioned earlier in another post at my blog. I have been wanting to repaint or redo the kitchen since shortly after I moved in. But it was good as it was so why take the time or the money.

Well, now I have so much time on my hands it’s crazy to not dig in. And I certainly can’t pay someone to do it. I’ve cleaned out the closets, storage and have purged the paper files. Threw out the tree’s that I brought home from my last job that had been filed under training and technology. RIght, poor tree’s! Interesting thing about that if they were actually able to implement some of their training, they might be great instead of pretty good. But then what do I know about business and sales…

Why post? If I put it here maybe someone will help keep me on track to finish. And as I get more paint off, I’ll post more pictures. Of course now that I’ve gone this far;

See and download the full gallery on posterous

There really is no turning back. As soon as that orange stuff has set a bit longer … I’m hoping it releases the paint to I can unhinge the doors? I hope? Why do people paint hinges?

Posted via email from jgx’s posterous

Categories
don't speak...don't speak! rant

The Perils of Unemployment

Being unemployed means you have 40 extra hours a week to fill with something.  I have a lot of free time.  Problem is, I like it.  I do “nothing” better than anyone I know.  Mainly because I can do “nothing” for a very long time and love every minute of it!  Besides, you can only job search so many hours a day.  And networking is lunch, dinner or if you’re lucky just a drink!

I was laid off last September. I knew it was coming long before September. There’s no place in a box, with high walls and excel spread-sheet to fill out for a crazy right brainer like me.

a_whole_new_mind1

Although I think that I do well in that world and have a nice balance. But I’m about relationships, the company I was with was about the transaction. Ca-Ching!

Since September I attempted to write a novel. Still working on that actually. I think the core of the story was too much about my life to keep me interested. I haven’t had a bad life, but it hasn’t been one big party after another either. And, I guess, you know I’ve heard it all before. I know how it played out, so no need to hash it all out again. Nothing will change from it. And I couldn’t spin it enough to make it interesting enough I guess to keep me.

I attempted a career shift, tried to become a social media…something? Not an expert. That takes 10,000 hours. Not a guru, for me that implies following. Even though that’s what Twitter is about, don’t really want people following me. Practitioner feels to medicinal. I put on LinkedIn Social Media Wrangler. I spent the last 10 months reading, exploring and deep diving into the social media space. I have a bunch of accounts.  Even have my own Poken, do you?  Some of those accounts are listed here. A lot of places to be huh?  My list of social media is a FRACTION of that.  But some days too many.  I’m still not as glued to it as I was.  Twitter was down day before yesterday.  That’s what I heard.  Didn’t even know it until later that night.

I belong to Social Media club. I Twitter and FB for PSU and set up my friend at Bonneville Spa. But you see, these “social media” spots are either in the marketing or communications departments. Crazy me thinking that I could get a job in communications? It’s so specialized. How dare I step outside my box! Right. Not in a box, never have been. But my past “title’s” are defining me and have me square in the middle of a box.  Maybe that’s why I’ve thrown so many away in the last couple of weeks while purging?

box1

I started cleaning out closets and purging boxes and storage. After several trips to Goodwill, ARC and the Community Warehouse, I’ve gone from two full storage units to one almost full. I have a few things left to shred and recycle.  But have to wait for them to empty the big dumpster’s around the complex.  Seems I’m not the only one.

l10606611l10606601

Got my car cleaned up to sell. Time to get off my ass. Besides, the $500 a month that I’ll save and the cash in the bank from the sale will make unemployment a bit manageable incase it’s a few more month before I do find work.

for sale $11,000

Now I’m going to attempt to do what I’ve wanted to have done since I moved into my condo. The kitchen cabinets have about 27 layers of paint on them. So many in fact that some of the doors don’t close for the paint on the hinges.

l1060650l1060649

I’m actually hoping that I kind of get started, find a job and then can pay someone to finish it! 😉

Although selling the car will allow me to hold off and not just take any job. Of course with unemployment if I get offered a job I have to take it. But no on is offering so I’m not worried about that.

I don’t however think I have the skill and ability to finish that cabinet job…

Categories
creative don't speak...don't speak!

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot | PBS

I am loving this interview!

Posted via web from jgx’s posterous

Categories
creative don't speak...don't speak!

Ever ~ After

One of my favorite movies is a recent version of Cinderella, Ever After with Drew Barrymore. I have lots of favorite movies and dislike that question, “What’s your favorite movie?” There are too many for too many reasons.

Why Ever After? Because it’s just a kick ass version of Cinderella. I do remember my first with Lesley Ann Warren. In black and white of course. Cinderella or Danielle in Ever After, no matter what happens, no matter how bad it gets, no matter who tries to beat her down, she remembers who she is and how great she is. And at a point when she could have had her stepmother and sister thrown out of the country, or worse, she takes a lighter approach. If you want to call it lighter? Cinderella ask’s that they show her stepmother the same courtesy that she had bestowed on her. Off to the work camp!  🙂

But that’s not what I’m writing about. After the Prince has fallen in love with the “Comtesse Nicole de Lancret”, Cinderella. He says to her in the ruins, “I used to think that if I cared about anything I’d have to care about everything and I’d go stark raving mad.”

I remember sitting in my little apartment in Raytown, MO. It had to be 1981 or 82? Watching Philip Glass, “Koyaanisqatsi” and weeping when the image of an older man appears on the screen. He appeared to be homeless. I couldn’t stop crying. It was as if the value of every living being was all of a sudden on my shoulders.

I was trying to wrap my head around all this emotion and level of mean today.  Maybe I was looking for a distraction?  I was thinking about the number 9. A friend was into numerology a few years back and did my numbers. I only remembered 9. It may have been because that’s all she did at the time.

I recently created my 4th Twitter account. One is for some work that I’m doing so it’s not really my account. One is @4212Olive. The address of the house that my Dad grew up in and the house that holds or held many of the stories of his youth that I heard in my youth. There also where my Uncle, Aunt and of course Grandparents. Stories that I still hear 50 plus years later. Then I realized, 4+2+1+2=9. I know!!

O.k., Google search for numerology. Get your free reading, from a guy in Beaverton, OR? Near where I used to live. Sure! Then I got about 5 follow up email asking if I wanted more. Which was fine. That’s how he makes money. I kind of wish that was something I could just throw money at for fun right now. But I don’t think it fits into the budget of my unemployed status.

My life path is 9, of course. expression is 5, soul urge is 8. Here are few random sentences from the reading.

9 – You probably feel responsible for keeping up the morality or spirit of mankind in some way, or even responsible for their very souls. You are very aware of feeling as insignificant as a grain of sand in the Universe and believe that materialism, prejudice and lust just don’t matter in the long run. Often the number 9 faces a unique challenge at some point in his or her life that seems to be a test of faith. Usually this incident takes the form of a devastating personal loss, disease or some sort of tragedy. This triggers a period of time that lasts a few years that is often called the “dark night of the soul.” It is usually during this period of your life that you find the extreme courage and strength to become what is called a wounded healer. 

Your life may seem too tough to handle at times which makes you vulnerable to finding substitutes for the family unit.

5 – As your independence is so important to you, you thrive best in creative occupations that allow you a great deal of travel. You have an eye for design and appreciate the good things in life. In fact, you may spend a lot of your time trying to figure out how to get these things without having to work too hard. You very much believe that a person is defined by what he does and not what he wants to do so any business or project that you start will be very much branded with your personal flair. You are terrified of being stuck in one place or having your free spirit suffocated by labels and possessiveness. For this reason many of you feel quite suffocated in relationships or are unable to hold down a day job for any length of time. The last thing that could ever be said of you is that you are closed-minded. However, sometimes your permissiveness leads to relationships with odd or unstable individuals.

8 – Often your devotion to keeping the free exchange of money flowing costs you dearly personally either through overwork or thanklessness from others. The highest expression of your soul urge number is when you are at the top of the food chain and dispensing goodies down to those who work for you or love you. You are blessed with the tools that come in hand with being a great leader – foresight, analytical abilities and a great understanding of human nature. Your ability to sell ice to an Eskimo comes from a truly grounded and practical understanding of the wants and needs of humans. You are very astute when it comes to choosing partners and employees. You always assign people to roles that best suit their talents and resources and so that all benefit from your grand plans.

What does this all mean? I have no idea. But it does feel familiar.

I don’t know what I think about these types of things. They often seem to have some element of truth to them. Myer’s Briggs, Now, Discover Your Strength all of these random tests have truth to them, because they do describe parts of me.

But then I also believe a bit in that concept of predestination. That for the most part your life path is carved out for you. You may do things along the way that temporarily take you down another path. But ultimately you end up where you end up. You think you know what you want or where you want to be, but some one or some other force steps in front of you.

So I’m a bit stuck, but not really…#9, #5, #8. What’s next?

Ever After also says what I have believed forEver, you just never know.  So maybe a little more care in what you say to and about others.

Categories
don't speak...don't speak!

Too BRILLIANT not to share

This is Ben.  He belongs to my friends Jana and Bill who I met in Kansas City.  Kind of followed them to Portland, then they headed to LA for Hollywood success.  How did I get so lucky in the friend department?
This week they are on vacation visiting family.  Today on Facebook Jana posts this;
As Ben is holding his 5 month old cousin, he says, “Mom, do you know that babies know the secret to life.” I say, “yea” then he says, “yeah they know it until they are 2” I asked, “what happens then” he says, “they forget it”.

Posted via email from jgx’s posterous

Categories
don't speak...don't speak!

Portland Beaver’s!

@jgx
 
Sent from my iPhone.
Forgive spelling errors. The phone thinks it knows how to spell.

Posted via email from jgx’s posterous

Categories
don't speak...don't speak!

A day of first’s

@jgx
 
Sent from my iPhone.
Forgive spelling errors. The phone thinks it knows how to spell.

Posted via email from jgx’s posterous

Categories
creative

mowana-winky

So I’m going through boxes, closets and drawers to purge the unwanted, unused and ignored. As I do this I am, as suspected, running across things that I new were there, just didn’t know exactly were.

Like the very, very short story of Mowana-Winky. It’s on hotel paper from the Inn of Chicago. I don’t remember the conference, but know I was there. It was back in 1993 or 1994, cross my heart! Somewhere around there, anyway. And if some of you reading this, read my blog regularly. You will see a pattern or theme that runs through my life.

Maybe this will be this year’s National Novel Writing Month project.

Mowana-Winky lived in the jungle, with not a care in the world. Life was very simple. Nothing controlled Mowana-Winky. A day would begin with a stretch. Since no real duties go with the days events, hunger is the only guideline to action. Unless of course… it’s raining. The rain cleans and refreshes. Mowana-Winky liked rain. It was assurance that things were normal. And, time to laze away. The one aspect of Mowana-Winky’s life that was of the utmost importance was – the ocean. Being in the water calmed and put Mawana-Winky at ease. Water is a life force, a source of all potential. What was it about the water that drew Mowana-Winky? Something deep in the soul, in the unconscious. A mystery but a comfort.
Mowana-Winky

Categories
don't speak...don't speak!

move on

I think about what I want to say. What I could say. I actually write down much of what I want to say. But don’t often put it out for consumption. Otherwise, this blog would be enormous. And because, I realize that it’s not about me. Hasn’t been and never will be. So I can’t or shouldn’t say anything, won’t say anything. I just move on.

Stuff happens all around me and may happen around me. Most of the time having nothing to do with me and doesn’t affect me. Unless I let it. Even if maybe it was said about me. It’s my life, and I have some bit of control over that. If it is negative in nature or accusatory, I have to believe it’s a fear in the other. And again has nothing to do with me. So I move on.

I have to admit, I have been lucky to not hear a lot of negative things about me. Who knows how much is out there that I haven’t heard. But I think I can count on one hand a couple things back a few years. But they were baseless, pointless and really had nothing to do with me upon analysis. So I moved on.

In my last job a situation came up and I was trying my very best to maintain an open and democratic environment. I want to work in a fair and democratic place. So I tried to give everyone the opportunity to air their grievance, put it on the table and turn things around. To give everyone involve the opportunity to feel that they were being heard and that I would be making no assumptions. They were all going to get equal time to say what they thought, what they needed and what they heard. I think what they didn’t expect was that they were going to do this at the same time at the same table. I wasn’t going to take one word over another. I don’t play that, “he said, she said” game. In this case, “she said, she said”. I thought, to have the opportunity for all to be heard was a good idea. I was wrong. Long story short, I was called a bully. Move on?

I have to admit this one hit me like nothing had in a very long time. And I admit I’m not sure I have entirely moved on from that. I’m still learning from it. It still stings like nothing before. Well stings a bit like something about 22 years ago.

“Don’t bully me!” Bully? Was I a bully? And for several weeks I was a mess. I let it make me a mess. Weeks later I heard an apology. But still to this day, don’t know where that came from. I’ll move on.

It’s a battle that I’ve never wanted or had any inclination to take on, but is before me more than I care to acknowledge, this judgmental way of thinking. And, full confession I have caught myself, ashamedly, participating in negative banter. Even as I have done it I cringe and feel awful. Immediate remorse. Because in all these cases it was my downfall or faults that made me say these things. It is a fear, an inadequacy that makes me pass judgment on others. It has nothing to do with the person to which I referenced. This is about me. So I move on.

It’s the judgment; it’s the disrespect and the conditions that are set by someone for how they believe life should happen or how another should live. Approval, with conditions. Love with conditions. The level of mean is out of control. At least by my definition it is. I hear it on the news from and about people I don’t know. I hear it from people I know. I have to move on.

People making statements or judgments about others. Some based on factual information other times petty, petty history. It’s a cancer, bad energy, bad karma and tiresome. Move on.

The digs, the small jabs about someone, how they do or don’t do things. An assumption of what they may or may not have done. What they have said or may have said. How they treat others or how they are treated. It’s time to move on.

What does this accomplish? What does putting down or degrading anyone accomplish? In my opinion, it can’t do anything to the person that the comment is about. But it says something about the person saying it. Do they hear these accusatory, judgmental, mean things that they say. In that media space it stays forever. And might be heard. Comments in an email to someone about someone else are there forever and might be read. And you slowly but surely chip away at your soul. What is accomplished with the incessant need to belittle, degrade and pass judgment? Again, what does it accomplish? I’m asking, what does it accomplish?! If they have to continue to regurgitate the past, over and over again, won’t it eat at the core of the person saying it? Is it time to move on?

What is so desperate about their life that they just can’t let go? What has this other person or persons done to them that they can’t move on? Have they ruined their life? Changed the course of their life? Are they living a life in the gutter? Do they not have things? Have they lost things? No? Move on.

Think about the goodness of people. Think that people for the most part do the best that they can. Know that your best is not pointing out the worst in others. And that each person, large or small, big or tall does things in their own way to try to make a happy life. And what does it matter to anyone else? We are not other people. We are who we are at this very moment. No more, no less. So I think we can move on.

I don’t think anyone knows how to navigate life, really. So we all make mistakes, we all say things that we regret or had no context for saying. But out of fear we say it. I say please MOVE ON!

I live a pretty decent life. Ok, so I don’t have a job right now. My cushion is now gone. If I have to I can sell my car and go for a bit longer. And if it really gets bad I can put my condo on the market. As long as unemployment lasts I at least know that I can keep that current. I could digress and go deeper, but I’ll move on.

Here’s the thing. I can’t nor do I want listen to or hear anything negative or derogatory about anyone. No one. Friends, family and or foe. I realize it’s asking a lot. I just can’t do it. So, to use an old phrase, “if you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, don’t’ say it.” Speak of others as you hope they speak of you. I had a Great Grandmother who saw only the goodness in everyone. If only I could capture a fraction of that. If another’s life or way of life is disagreeable to you, leaving you the need to list their faults. I will not be listening. I’m moving on.

Colette & Augi
This is Colette with Augi, he’s two. And this is the look on her face 99% of the time. I’ll be aligning myself closely with my friend Colette. At just 36 she has had a busy couple of months. Since April, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, located her birth mother who passed away last year. Found 3 half brothers and 3 Aunts. She has had six chemo treatments, with two more to go. She will meet her brothers, aunts and her biological father this weekend. All that, BAR NONE she is the most positive person I know, on a scale of 1-10, she’s about a 28. A friend that I’m not sure I have the right to have. But I’m hanging with her and her family. Who to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say a negative, mean thing about anyone. They amaze me everyday, Colette, Michael, Sophia and Augi, in how they move through life. I’m with them.

I’m moving on.