Handy Polymath

Some days you're in Close Encounters; other days you're in Jaws.

Wish You Were Here

This place started as a gardening journal of sorts, as I approached my life the way an urban farmer looks at an abandoned lot. Then two things happened; I got into a mental snarl regarding the depth of my pseudonymity which torpedoed many half-written posts, and life exploded in a manner thoroughly encompassing the good, bad and ugly.

I filled out a life stress scale for shits and giggles, and anything over 300 indicates a major crisis with great risk for subsequent health effects. I scored 734, and would have gone higher if you could check items multiple times. I racked up 581 of those points in the last two months.

Though I must say, I hope the current scale has been updated not to speak solely to married het men–there’s no way in hell pregnancy is less stressful than a personal injury or illness. A comfy pregnancy is far better than chronic pain or a debilitating condition, but in my experience an average pregnancy is more to handle than, say, the average bone break.

A New Machine (Part 1)

Three months ago:

worked full time in cubeville
lived in the burbs with my spouse, kid and ancient cat
no school schedule
spouse in unstable job

Today:

dad’s had surgery for a minor bout of cancer
grandma passed on and I spoke at her memorial
started 9 credit hours of physiology and chemistry
quit job in cubeville and worked full two weeks notice
spouse took job four states away
culled, sorted and packed a small house full of stuff
kid started preschool
had a going-away party
moved a U-haul full of appliances to parent’s house
set up camp for kid and I in parent’s stuffed unfinished attic
said goodbye to spouse and cat for 70 days
spent my 13th wedding anniversary on a leaky air mattress with a four-year-old lodged in my armpit

A New Machine (Part 2)

Meanwhile I’ve been trying to salvage this term after spending half of it checked out academically, focusing instead on dismantling my life and cobbling together a series of temporary solutions. For the first time in my various careers as a student, I went to a prof’s office hours and threw myself on her mercy. I felt like a jackass, but I did it, and it seemed to have helped–I know where I stand and what I need to do, instead of flailing in a pit of loathing and self-recrimination.

I got the feeling very few students who come to her like this also sobbingly proclaim, “but I really like chemistry!” It’s this disconnect between interest and achievement that makes struggling harder, even though I know I’m only struggling because I’m making up all that study time I didn’t have earlier in the term. And my life exploded. Objectively I should give myself major credit for actually asking for help–this is a huge uncomfortable step for me even if I need to repeat these classes later. Old habits don’t simply die hard, they die messily with ruptured buboes.

Outside the Wall

This weekend features chemistry, laundry, a trip to the Ohio woodlands to scatter ashes, and–with the accompanying hotel stay–the chance to sleep on a real mattress.

In a little over a month I’ve got a 12 hour road trip to my spouse, my ancient cat, my new home and this new life we’re making out on the east coast.

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At the base of my problems with my job and getting a new one is this: hiring is a networker’s game, and I’m about a social as an Abbess–I do very well in small cloistered groups and cheerfully negotiating in the market, but do. not. take me to the royal court.

This does not square with the need to “put myself out there” in order to market myself and what I can do, which is how people have always landed good jobs, but now is the only way to get *any* job whatsoever in this state.

This is not an introvert’s world, and I have to say, that inconvenient fact will probably always piss me off. Just like “business hours” shoe-horning me into a schedule 2-3 hours ahead of my internal clock will always piss me off.

And so, I’m faced with the threat of some very awkward and odious work, in order to secure a new position that I won’t stay in very long, in a business environment I find stressful simply because I just. don’t. care. This is a bad idea, which is why I haven’t pursued it yet despite the terrible fit with my current position.

Then again, if I want to run a business down the road (and I can see in ten years tops I may need to for the same reason I started writing fiction–no one was doing what I wanted done as well as I could envision it being done), this is a skill set I really need to start building.

And so, I’m wondering how I could begin working on this in a way that doesn’t totally repulse me. I simply cannot fake interest, the result is even more offensive to others than my naked boredom. So I wonder what a geek can do with a writing portfolio, a desire to work in health care, a bit of artistic talent and the strict parameters of “I need to be passionate enough about this that I can be outgoingly social in its pursuit.”

In short, I need to create a project that will rev my engine, and pull together a group of people who share my interests.

“We shall awaken from our dullness and rise vigorously toward justice. If we fall in love with creation deeper and deeper we will respond to its endangerment with passion.”
Hildegard von Bingen

I need to embrace my Abbess nature.

Employees are required to power down brain before clocking in.

What’s becoming readily apparent is that running in high gear is not nearly as difficult as constantly shifting from high to low. In fact, the time spent running in low gear is the principle cause of frustration. It’s exhausting to spend eight hours a weekday in a role that not only doesn’t fit, but like a glass slipper made for someone else, requires one to sever a few toes to wear.

Thing is, I could easily complete my work duties in half the time if I could simply then move on to my homework until the phone rings again. Or leave and hit a coffee shop to crank out a few chapters of math before heading home at the usual hour. If I were actually held accountable for results and given the authority to produce them. But in my current role the appearance of work is far more important than results, because honestly there are very few metrics in the cube farm to begin with, and I’m not even close to a level that would require them. There’s little else to judge performance on than whether I look cheerfully busy until 5pm.

What if Bruce Wayne really worked in the secretarial pool of Wayne (no relation) Enterprises?

School has been a tremendous boon in this respect, because I now have marks to hit, a reason to work hard, material that engages my brain, and goals to meet that I give more than a passing damn about. Intrinsic motivation, baby, it’s what makes the world spin. The downside is that I can no longer deny the hours and weeks of wasted time waiting for each shift to end, saving each mindless task until its very deadline because once it’s complete I’ll have absolutely nothing to do.

Work expands to fit the time given to complete it. Currently I’m shoving 8.5 hours of college work into the niches and cracks of a 40 hour workweek that has, at most, 5-10 full hours of busywork in it. Without being able to do any schoolwork during business hours (save for a half hour lunch). The constant adjustment of time dilation is surreal.

I do not get paid nearly enough to waste time that could be spent getting closer to where I want to be. This has always been true, I admit. But now that I’ve cleared through the mental baggage and know that this goal is real, this is the path I need to take, and success needs only my hard work to make happen, the absurd reality of where I’m stuck is painful. It’s like volunteering for a lobotomy each morning and trying to shake it off on the drive home. It’s like working in a crawlspace all day and then trying to run. I’ve got to figure out better methods of self-care.

Endure, Grasshopper. Then snatch the pebble and run like hell.

I’ve got at least a year of this, probably two. A different job might help but between the economy and the fact that I’m not technically qualified for any job of sufficient complexity to engage me, have no interest in most of the types of work I am qualified for, and only in the last handful of years have I even thought myself capable of year-round sustained effort in any field–honestly even if I didn’t have this vocation burning a hole in my chest I’d be a great candidate for total career re-boot.

In other words, figure out some good self-care so I don’t burn out, check out or flake out. This is the new normal and the reason it hurts is that the anesthesia is wearing off and the stretching and exercise must begin. Work it, let it hone your purpose, and don’t let the cognitive dissonance define who you are or what you do.

My titles blow today, fair warning. Imagine the marvelous Sandwina above breaking them into letters and assembling them anew.

Exorcising Pain, Exercising Again=A Scapegrace Genii Nixing Iron Six

About eight months ago I busted one of my trotters, beginning a saga of healing I’m still trudging along. Heal the bone, the inflamed joint, get rid of the limp, go back to therapy to heal the whacked out body mechanics, finally get to the point of sleeping without pain.

Unfortunately the time limit for “not exercising but not getting bigger” is about six months, so since the start of May I’ve outgrown my pants. Not cool. I can’t afford new pants. Also, I don’t like having to negotiate around my belly to do things.

This morning I decided to face the fact that I’ve developed a barrel physique, and do something different.

Not just the difference of “changing those things that have made you bigger” but also the difference of “changing how you handle this fact”.

I’m Getting Better by Getting Meta=Abetting Getting Better Gym Time

This is not my first rodeo. I’ve wrestled before with the disconnect of a body not meant for the post-industrial economy. Like a bad shopping cart, I’ve had to lean hard into the steering a few times before.

Coming from peasant stock, I’m built to translate potatoes and sausage into plowing output. This is another reason I’m escaping the cube farm: I don’t wear sedentary well. I need a certain amount of movement and physical work to keep both body and mind running well, and recuperating from this injury has made me terribly lethargic even when my butt isn’t socketed into an office chair.

This time my transitional moment took different turn.

I did not berate or punish myself. That only hurts and exacerbates the problem.
I did not research the issue. I know what is healthy and how to become fit, and further reading would be a substitute for action.
I did not create a plan. I have no mental room for plans right now.
I did not exchange one extreme for the other. This change happened over time, and any course correction must also be paced for the long haul.

I measured myself, to state the baseline I’ll be working away from. I strapped on the sport bra of an Amazonian Queen. I jumped a little rope and did some inclined push-ups. I showered and took time for pampering. I’m eating well. I’ve got my clothes laid out for the next little bit of exercise.

In short, I made a place for movement in my life again, and rewarded myself accordingly.

Previously, I’d described the recent change in my cognitive style, going from the punctuated drama of Fits of Conan to the more sedate but powerful Aggregate Futzing. The latest application is to the career path.

Where I am (the cube farm) and where I want to be (physical therapy) is separated by a deep chasm of time and money. I have been unable to solve this problem for years now, no matter how hard I try to will myself across the gap.

So, um. What if I built a bridge? Seems kind of obvious, right?

In other words, take a year of night school and train in massage therapy. Begin with a skill that is related, offers flexible hours, decent pay and gives me the opportunity to start developing people and clinical skills before I even enter a PT program. There’s also the advantage of developing entrepreneurial smarts and a clientele now, and having the business grow with me.

And so this is the next experiment: stop trying to will myself across the gap and start building a bridge. Yes, this means walking away from the precipice to gather lumber. That’s not necessarily going backwards.

Another Good Idea Bites the Big One

I’ve become unconvinced about the interim step of becoming certified in massage therapy. It’s intriguing, but I doubt it’s the best method for leveraging myself into the place I want to be.

Needed: Escape Hatch That Doesn’t Lead to Space

I figure I have a year (two tops) of being able to handle the cube farm without collapsing under burnout. Every day is a struggle to keep engaged with the menial business of being an underling with no career path and no real added value. There’s no question I will wig out if I stay, if the only parole I can look forward to is a lateral shift to a different paperwork stream.

In this year or two I could jam several classes. Massage certification totals 35 hours. The prerequisite classes I need to enter a program for physical therapy (the Science Upgrade of math, chemistry and physics) total 40 hours. The proposed pathway for using massage therapy as a launch vehicle for physical therapy would still require the Science Upgrade. As they do not overlap at all, this becomes 75 hours.

This would be worth it if massage therapy was sparkly and exciting, but the more I read the paler the colors get. It’s doesn’t go deep enough into the biology, and it only rarely addresses the root causes of pain and dysfunction. It’s great icing, but I want the cake.

Upon Catastrophic Failure, Disassemble for Spare Parts

As a failed plan it still has great merit. The feeling of momentum the idea gave me has jumped tracks, making great progress on the Science Upgrade instead. I’d registered with the school that has the best massage program–but they also offer a slew of Science Upgrade courses in off-hours and have a bazillion short and online terms each year, aimed at the non-traditional student.

The Science Upgrade: How I Learned to Stop Fearing Math and Became a Polyamorous Student

I used to have math anxiety, in part due to bad math teaching (endemic in the US) and binary thinking (if I’m really good at verbal skills, it makes sense to be bad at math–never mind that I also rock at spatial relations and scientific reasoning). I had an epiphany during a required Statistics class where I realized math was simply logic in the language of numbers (why did no one tell me this before?!), and have never been the same since.

Alas, the knowledge was too new and tender to influence the course of my BA. When I started back-filling algebra into my brain it wasn’t just the lack of anxiety that surprised me, but the moments of sheer joy. Understanding many of the concepts felt like finally putting into words something I’d been puzzling over forever. My brain was thirsty for the language and tools of math.

And so I embark on the Science Upgrade at two different schools, not only a non-traditional student but also a polyamorous one, negotiating transfer credits like emotional baggage between four different institutions (Ye Olde University where I got the BA, two community colleges, and the eventual grad school).

Wheee!

Cubes are Immunosuppressive

The cold I got at the beginning of the month has morphed into a sinus thing. The first round of antibiotics is an abject failure. I’m awaiting doctor advice on the second line of attack. I am not alone in this predicament.

How many working folks in the US find themselves in a similar bind? For many of us, staying home to get better is penalized both financially and professionally. In a better situation we’d sleep for a day or two and bounce right back. Instead we slog in dutifully day after day, run ourselves down further, end up with secondary issues from opportunistic bacteria, end up on the big gun antibiotics (in some cases, more than one type), and infect the whole damn workplace.

Crappier Living Through Chemistry

I can hear hand sanitizer being deployed whenever I cough, a furtive click and sweep on the other side of the cubicle. Lemme tell you buddy, I’d be home sipping hot toddies and watching Arrested Development if I had my druthers. But frankly, one day at home is not going to help much at all, and I can’t take more than that; therefore those 6 hours of sick time are staying in the bank.

So this is the first source of guilt: my choice to be awake and in public means I’m also compromising my health and the health of others. Add in the overuse of antibiotics and consequent resistance–which I’m arguably contributing to in my tactic of trying to replace rest and recuperation with pharmaceuticals–and it’s clear that staying home offers better return on investment for everyone, if the cost/benefit analysis took these items into account. Which it doesn’t, for the individual. Which is why I’m in UR cube farm germing up UR HVAC.

Which is why we’re fucked if and when a true pandemic occurs, because so many of us have already practiced dry runs of dying in the saddle, woozy at our keyboards and muting the phone to cough.

Bird flu tragically sweeps through cube farm

Manning Your Skinner Box Doesn’t Mean You’re Adding Value

Second source of guilt: I’m barely functional. So yes, I’m getting more accomplished than if I had stayed home…but it’s at the level of splitting hairs. The perceived benefit of coming in when ill is that you don’t slip too far behind in the tasks you already hate doing. The real consequence is that you do still fall behind, while doing nothing to manage expectations to a realistic level that matches your hampered ability.

When you’re out, you get a grace period and possibly some kind of coverage (though you take the hit financially and in your perceived reliability). When you’re just out-of-it, the slide is all on you, babe.

The bottom line is that there is no good decision available in this system, no way to reconcile the individual’s best interest with that of the community, both the workplace and society at large. So long as the current model of face time=perceived job quality persists, so long as gold stars are being given out by management for stoic forbearance, for ‘making it in regardless’, for getting your ass in the seat even if your brain is checked at the door, then the result is an environment no less damaging than a factory farm for people.

Do Not Bend, Fold, Spindle or Give a Damn

I found my diploma last night. Stowed in a drawer, still in the “Do Not Bend” mailer it came in. Ten years and a few months old. I knew the sheepskin was somewhere in the house, but I would have sworn this mailer housed an x-ray film.

And I think to myself, “How did I ever think vanity was one of my motives for going to grad school? Seriously?”

Depending on how far afield ones looks in my family tree, I’m either the first or third person to complete a bachelor degree. I have an aunt on one side and an uncle on the other. My dad has an AA and my mom half a BS. My brother and his wife have gone on to their own bachelors in the interim, in the same manner that I did: working part and full time while plugging away at university, married non-traditional students too stubborn to quit.

In short, I earned the hell out of that piece of parchment, and then kept it in the mailer for a decade. Because the journey and the accomplishment are part of me, and the sheepskin is a souvenir to store somewhere cool and dry.

Garnish Is Meant To Be Superficial

So perhaps the little zing of glee I get when I think about adding letters after my name on a business card, or wearing a velvet hood to pick up something I can frame on a wall (a decade later, probably) is nothing remotely big enough to be mistaken for the actual motivation spurring me onward: this is what I find satisfying, this is what I’ve found interesting for years now, this is big enough and wonderful enough to be my playground and my workshop and my contribution.

Physical therapy, rehabilitation, working with folks as a mechanic of the body (and somewhat of the mind) is the best combination of my interests and gifts that I’ve yet found.

My brain has run through a long string of passing fancies and chronic passions. The two things that I have never burned out on are writing and biology. Everything else is an expression of curiosity, or a drive to add another creative skill. At the very bottom, reverberating through all the layers above are these basic truths: I am a writer, and I am fascinated by the miraculous mechanics of people. Everything else is an interesting overflow.

Got My Mind Right, Boss

When I finished the bachelor degree, I had recently decided not to continue on to clinical psychology. This felt like admitting failure at the time, but in retrospect was the point when I started listening to myself and acting accordingly. I had no idea where I was going, only that I wanted to find something I didn’t have to force myself to do. In time, I figured out what that could be. Then I slowly began to believe I could hike over to that playground one day.

That’s when I let myself finally see and confront the doubts I had about myself, my motivations, my reasons for choosing this path. My motivations are not always pure; neither are they as terrible as I’d assumed. Some of them are pure confabulation, randomly-chosen forms to camouflage the real issue at hand: fear. Fear of all sorts of things. Lately I’ve been working up strongman muscles in the dual fields of “scared shitless and doing it anyway”, and “not worthy/ready/prepared but fuck it — failing is learning, right?”.

Plan B, For When You’re From Outer Space

A vocation is not a calling to be a good person, or training for your better angels. A vocation is an opportunity to channel a lot of your true self into something worthwhile, both strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes the demon on your shoulder is a problem child bored out of her fucking gourd. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, your weakness is a strength suffering by being in the wrong context, clashing and sticking like any gear would out of place.

A great deal of my problem these days comes from the context of where I am. I have two methods to deal with this.

Ignore the clash between my context and myself, and anesthetize against the dissonance. Ultimately, the hurty parts will die and drop off. At least that’s the theory. Hasn’t worked yet, and it’s been a decade spent taking a few classes to spice up the daydreams of escape.

Plan B is more painful each day, but is more promising. It means cultivating the dissonance. It means jamming what I want to do into each day’s worth of what I have to do. It means being Bruce Wayne and Batman and Alfred Pennyworth and treating this enterprise like a start-up where I work like a dog but get somewhere because I’ll change tactics, I’ll use a whole utility belt full of skills, I’ll even ask for help, but I won’t give up.

I put myself through school once, with stubborn will, resourcefulness and the support of my best friend. I can do it again. Especially when the alternative is the self-lobotomy of the cube.

I had a lovely weekend doing fun stuff. I painted, wrote, cooked and lost myself in projects and play. Today was a frustrating annoying letdown in comparison, simply by having to drive to the cubicle. Now that the Big Anomalous Interesting Task is over, my job has returned to its previous “office lady” mode of creating nothing, developing nothing, only frenetically supporting people who do actual work.

I’m not meant for corporate environments. I hate the fact they own my time and fill it without any regard to what I could actually bring to the table. I hate that I sell so much of my waking time, wasting it in marking the clock and forcing myself to care about trivial bullshit.

I like making things, and making things better. I don’t care about hierarchy or acquisition. I’m a puzzle-solver. I’m a craftsman. Another job is a fool’s errand–I need to get away from the computer and stop being a gear entirely. I need to create for myself a series of shops where I can ply my crafts. A clinic, a writing space, somewhere to paint, and to play the guitar I’ve had for five years and still haven’t learned.

I’m filling out the FAFSA, to see what (if any) financial aid options I have. I hate tax documents and red tape, but I loathe this lifestyle more, so much more; forcing myself every weekday to engage in an endless dribble and flood of boring deadening mindless tasks because why? I’m afraid of tuition loans (both the debt, and also not having the credit to get them). I’m afraid of miscalculating and jeopardizing the house. I’m afraid if I glance too long away as I run on the gerbil wheel of middle-classdom I’ll be flung off.

I’ve been afraid that if I plunge into this, I’ll miss something of my kidlet in the next few years. And instead I’ve been ever-vigilant to keep these swells of despair from her, to shove them down to be present for her. Only now have I gained the courage to acknowledge that process, and add that toll to the books.

I’ve decided to have a midlife crisis in my spare time. It’s a hobby I’m testing out.