Leaky Ceiling

Planning when I already have a plan.

I found a library book under my bed from last year. At that time, I spoke with the librarian, insisting I returned the book. She was really nice, and said she'd take the fee off the account, but if I find it, to bring it in. I assured her I wasn't going to find it, since I returned the book, and they somehow missed scanning it back into their inventory. Well, after I found it I decided I'd suck it up, and return it. Wearing a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses, I dropped it in the drop box, after hours.

Last month I went on a spree at the library. My account should stop letting me check out books after four. The screen should read, "Denied, because it's impossible for you to read all this in three weeks!" But against my judgement, I kept checking out books on paranormal activity. Then the due date came up, and my email reminders to return the books, and I swept them all into a canvas tote, and dropped them off, unread. Shortly after, I received an email about a book I thought I returned with the stack. If I went there to explain that, once again, they actually just missed returning my book, I figured they'd ban me, so I decided to sit on the email, steer clear of the library, and I bought a book on Amazon.

I went for humor this time because I can't get back into reading ghost stories till I rescue an alligator to sit on my doorstep 24 hours a day. This book has 4.5 stars and over a thousand reviews on Amazon, I thought I'd surely be laughing-my-ass-off to sleep each night, but trying to read this book is torture. How could a book be so highly peer reviewed and such a steaming pile of doo? Im half way through, and can't even consider picking it up again. When there are chapterS(!) completely made up of text message chains about bull shit, it's clear there was an attempt to fill out the fifty pages of funny material, with three hundred pages of stupid-ass-shit (thats an actual critical term.) The tone is someone who drank a pot of coffee, snorted some cocaine, and is telling a story while frantically looking for lost keys. Its excruciating.

An expected surprise occurs when I start my car. Apple Music randomly chooses a song and it blasts through the silence, knocking me back in my seat. Sometimes Apple Music gets it right, and I buckle up and zoom away. But other times it starts to play songs that I need ten years or so before hearing. If Blitzen Trapper or Kurt Vile start in on their folksy folk songs, my initial reaction is to punch a hole in the dash console. But I scavenge through my purse, raking through napkins, receipts and new additions to my kids' rock collection to find my phone that is most likely not in that giant pit, but smartly tucked in the small front pocket. After I'm forced to confront emotions and thoughts like, Did I just hate myself that much, drift up from the silt in my shaken mind, I find the phone and pick out a new song.

The other night I had a dream I was walking down the hallway, and noticed the celieng was leaking outside the bathroom. I looked closer and saw blood was dripping, not water. Then the leak started gushing, like a hose, spraying blood all over the place. After waking up from this, I panicked. The raining blood could most definitely mean something disastrous, but if I think of it as just a leaky ceiling, then its still not good, but not as bad. Because females regularly bleed, bled or are going to bleed, dreaming about blood ins't necessarily associated with danger. And I can attribute the blood in the dream to my flow coming almost two weeks early. I don't keep a calendar with this info, but this time I know for sure because I went to the gynecologist the first week of April, and as he put it, "I see you're on the tail end of things."
I decided to go to the doctor on my own, without the advice of a woman who charges $400 an hour, so I can get my clean bill of health and find something else to think about. He was a really nice guy, actually full of productive advice and support. We talked about life. He's from the East Coast and has a daughter my age. I told him about my situation and then, he went in with the clamp thing, carrying on conversation. He stood up, and with one hand in me, and another pressing down on my lower abdomen, he said he thought I was handling things well. He sees how fixating on a breakup can be a form of self torture, so its best to stay positive.

Afterward he wanted to talk about birth control. I'm a mid thirties woman whose never been on birth control; possible link to my semi-successuful marriage (everyone gets a trophy, dammit!) And, well, all those videos from health class in high school had a really big impact on me. I can't understand why someone would want to be out free fucking without using condoms. Are people forgetting how terrifying Aids was in the nineties. I was just a kid, but the illusion of sex was quite terrifying after being told repeatedly it leads to a slow torturous death.
My doctor let me know that one day I'll get back out there, and need to get on some form of birth control because, and he eye-balled my chart, theres maybe ten years I could conceive.
I told him, if the time comes, I'll give him a call, but for now Im good. He let me know that regardless of pregnancy, the pill is very good for keeping periods regular and minimizing PMS.
I consider my interloping period to be a super power. I can jump onto any woman's cycle who waves at me, and I don't associate PMS with bitchiness, but rather, extreme clarity. So, its all good. He gave me parting advice, get back into data analysis, you got mouths to feed.
"But you don't understand, I'm INFJ! Do you think it's too late to become a singer? I just need to learn how to sing."


I want to make a million dollars, and probably for the wrong reason, it will be the ultimate Burn. Job searching is such a bore, and I really need to get things sorted in my head. Like should I be practical or dream big. I'd like to do both, but sometimes they don't align. The last couple weeks I have been spending so much energy thinking about this, and its actually a big ass waste of time. I have an excellent one year plan that allows me to work part time teaching. So next year, when George starts kindergarten, I need to get the full time job and find a new house.
The one thing that keeps derailing my one year plan is when I think, but it can take a year to find a job. But it most likely won't and this unnecessary worry is keeping me from living in the moment. Egh, I sound like the annoying book I have to donate to the library.

This is my first weekend without the kids. I am most definitely not wasting time applying jobs that I don't want until Fall 2018. I have so many other things to do, like make my daughter a Glenda the Good Witch costume, clean a couple things around my house, work on a writing project and watch some movies! When I was looking for something else to read, I swept through the pile of magazines on my bedside table, a table I searched twice already, and I found the paranormal book I lost after never reading it , and, like that, I can return it to the library and instead of being a patron who looses books, Im a patron who pays big late fees. I have a bit of time before I need to be a fully functioning head-of-household, so I need to keep reminding myself to take my time, and think things through. Sometimes it stresses me out, but there's no reason to rush, sometimes things come out of nowhere. It's not like the roof is falling in on us.

My Fried Egg Sandwich

I called my sister earlier. I didn't have anything to say, but that didn't stop us from sitting on the phone for an hour, talking about what we were looking at on the internet, occasionally conversing, and saying goodbye, but never hanging up.
I told her, "I made a fried egg sandwich for lunch, so I thought of you."
Shocked by the coincidence, she replied, "Oh my gosh! I made spaghetti last night, and I thought of you!"

My sister is one of my closest friends, even though we were cutthroat enemies as young children. She doesn't cope well at all with having to share attention, and I don't cope well with someone telling me what to do. So it was hard to balance, since I'm a natural show-stealler and she is natural leader.

My sister has been keeping the family in order since she was a toddler. Her greatest skill is being able to talk. She can talk like no one is listening, meaning she says whats on her mind without worrying how it will be received. She is so good at talking, and unfazed with meeting new people, that she has been offered a job after every interview she's done. Because of this she has managed to always work a couple jobs, and has a hard time understanding how people can't find work.
She once told me about a job interview she went for, and after chatting with the lady for over an hour, the lady asked her, "Whats something people don't really know about you?"
And my sister said, "I'm actually really shy."
This is especially hard for anyone to believe who knows her well, since she has always been the best person to go out on the town with, as she amasses a following of people who are completely mesmerized by her loud and hysterical presence.

Three years ago I went to Philly to spend my birthday weekend. The last day we stood in line at a deli, and she opened her chips and carried on a one-way conversation at full volume while popping chips in her mouth. My overly receptive reaction was to tell her not to talk with her mouth full of food, or to lower her volume since everyone was looking at her, but it was the last time I'd see her for a year, so I really enjoyed watching her overtake the entire room, and not really giving two fucks if people thought she was a loud mouth who talks with her mouth full. The older man slicing the meat was looking at her with mild entertainment, grinning at her own lack of concern, and it was a moment of true admiration. To just be yourself.

When I eat a fried egg sandwich it makes me think of her because she loves to tell me about how delicious fried egg sandwiches are, and how her love of this food makes her family goes through eggs and bread faster than most. She now associates me with spaghetti after my kids and I went through a routine of spaghetti Monday, which had the added benefit of spaghetti Tuesday. But my kids, who never like to get on board with convenience, stopped eating spaghetti and told me it is disgusting and tastes like dirt. I need to get more creative with our dinners, but I don't really feel like thinking about it. I know just the person to tell me what to do.

Contents of My Closet

The Beanie baby collection did not pay off as I hoped

Unbeknownst to be, I'm feeling a little stressed. I know this now because I sprouted a cold sore. I was in Tahoe over the weekend to visit family. It's not uncommon for me to get a cold sore after leaving my parents, and I don't think they necessarily stress me out, but something is going on.

This time, it had to do with barely getting any sleep because my kids kept waking up throughout the first night, and I made a fatal mistake of window shopping on amazon prime for over an hour, then closing my laptop and rolling over to catch some sleep. Disaster plan for anyone hoping to quickly drift off. I laid there for a couple hours contemplating any possible decision that might come my way within the next ten years.
After I finally did start to fall asleep, one kid woke up, then the next, then the other one woke up again, then the other, etc. Was I a grouchy ass the next day? You bet. George and I came back to Sacramento, and Kiki stayed with my parents for her first personal vacation. She reports no desire to come home, and is living life like the spoiled only child she aspired to be.

Traveling in Tahoe used to involve a lot less traffic. This never ending winter and the Waze app have put a wrench in quick weekend trips. Tahoe locals had, and I mean had, secret routes to navigate through town on jam packed ski weekends and holidays where tourism is peaking, and the main road is gridlocked.
I wont even mention these routes, in the hope Waze becomes nonexistent, and Tahoe locals can reclaim our secret routes. So Waze initially allowed a group of San Franciscans a luxury to get out of Tahoe without the stress of sitting in a 4 hour traffic jam. But then everyone started using this app, and the locals-only route got just as backed up as the main road, so basically no one can get around that town on busy weekends unless they are willing to sit in their car for a couple hours. Don't drink anything before heading to the grocery store. In fact, you'd make it to the grocery store and back faster if you chose to go by foot, rather than car. Or even by bike, in a blizzard, would be faster. How to spot these city slickers with undeserved knowledge, well the first sign is they are driving a brand new $40,000 SUV that doesn't have four wheel drive, a tell tale sign of someone who works in Human Resources at Google.

George and I are driving back to Tahoe today to pick Kiki up, and we'll quickly come back tomorrow. Tahoe, I love you, but I can only see you on the off-season. Plus, I'm reading the signs my body is telling me, which is to feed my need to isolate.

Yesterday I went through several boxes of crap from my adolescence. We moved to Tahoe before I started sixth grade, and last year my parents sold their house, and left me with my entire closet's contents.
It's a common concern that digital pictures make it much less likely to print, and although you might take thousands of more photos than the times of 35mm, there is much less physical content being produced. After sifting through a box of probably four thousand photos from middle school through college, I am so glad for this shift in modern lack of photo printing. Printing a couple pictures a year will better suit my lifestyle of not owning a hundred thousand pictures when I die.

I started going through them, and realized, I need to throw 99% of these pictures away. I just need to find the time to go through them all, and pick out the handful worth saving. My little sister suggested just throwing them all in the trash and save myself that time.  I also have a chachki problem, and have so many little trinkets that all carry overinflated sentimental value. Like a shoebox full of rocks, and an envelope stuffed with the fortunes from Chinese food cookies.

I found a small trove of Beanie Babies, and after seeing a link on Facebook a couple months back about the goldmine some of these cuties sit on, I did a bit of online research, and discovered none of the beanie babies I have are worth any money. Egh. That would have been an exceptional outcome to the day I wasted. While doing this research, I realized how off mark my targeted ads were. I was being shown pictures of luxurious $185 PAJAMAS! Even when I can spend $185 on pajamas, where a profit goes to saving the world from corporations massively manufacturing shit to sell to people online, I will easily refrain from any temptation. I would rather drive down the road, and throw $185 in the gutter before buying pajamas for $185. Its not because I don't think I deserve luxury, its because I'm better than that ridiculous "luxury" being sold.

I also used to be a big collector of clothes, and saved various stuff in boxes. Some of the items were vintage, but after sitting in my closet for ten years, all of the clothes stunk up like a goodwill dumpster. Now that I have an extra closet, I figure I might as well, dust this shit off and hang it up amongst the loads of other clothes I don't normally wear. My energy efficient washer is not powerful enough to wash the musty stank away, so I have to double wash them.

It was funny though, going through some of the stuff. Like I found a vibrator thats never been taken out of the box. I thought I threw it away because I worried my parents could discover it if I died unexpectedly. But, I didn't, I hid it in a Shag Rampage purse that stinks like beer from all the bar counter tops it rested on. I will likely donate it, so my kids don't find it after I die, but who knows if it would even works since its over ten years old. A tax write off, is a tax write off.

I also found a collection of berets, every card or letter written to me, and a bunch of journals from my early twenties that make Sylvia Plath look like Rainbow Brite. What was I so sad about, well I can tell you after I read three novels I wrote describing it.

I am reading Jenny Lawson's memoir, Let's Pretend This Never Happened. She was talking about how much she hated high school, and I could commiserate. She acknowledged that some people really did enjoy high school, and they were most likely cheerleaders. I was a cheerleader, and I can say high school was so torturous I'd happily black it out from my memory, but luckily I documented the entire four years with a couple thousand photographs.

I thought her describing high school as "the absolute low you can benchmark your life on," was a positive way to look at things. Because really, every things been uphill since.

After making it though five of the boxes, I was overwhelmed by what was left and stacked them in the corner of my garage. There is always the possibility this never ending rain will flood the garage. I will certainly not loose any sleep if I have to throw the boxes away because of unrecoverable water damage. Fingers crossed. I have yet to find a video camera I hope was run over by a bulldozer. But until this is confirmed, I can ponder its existence during web surfing induced insomniac nights.

Sentimental Value digital photos. Why must I take a screen shot every time I catch 11:11

Reptilian Brain

I love Fridays. George and I get to do whatever we want until we pick up Kiki at 2. We usually start the day at the gym. I do the 8:30 yoga class. Yoga is offered throughout the week, but the instructor on Friday is a certifiable wunderfrau; determined to get us all in a good state of mind regardless of how well we twist up into a pretzel. The first twenty minutes are spent simply breathing. And she doesnt shy away from doing crazy shit, like Pranayama. She is also quite funny, for someone who radiates calmness. She has great little one liners, like how she reminded us to not flex our butts during cobra. She said, "Keep your anus relaxed."
Everyone laughed of course, because "Your anus" sounds like "Uranus."
And, even though she plays flute and drum music throughout our practice, she puts her unique spin on things, playing Leon Russell during savasana.

My gym is owned by a megachurch, and because of this there are bizarre systems in place. Like we're not allowed to chant during yoga. I'd say the Friday instructor, whose likely noticed her class has the greatest attendance of any, gives herself a bit of leeway, and will throw in an occasional chant masked as a collective drawn out dragon's breath.
She also doesn't refrain from throwing the word God around. Its nice, during this time, to hear a new age woman say God, without there being the negative connotation, that she's a republican with an agenda.

Last week I read a profile on Daniel Dennett, and it was clear the author wanted to demonstrate Dennett is not suffering from his atheism. His portrait of Dennett exuberantly living life to the fullest was a tad overboard, I'd say. The article was interesting when comparing Dennett to his nemesis, David Chalmers.
The author of the piece, Joshua Rothman, claimed to have been team-Chalmers, but after his mother suffered from a stroke, and became a robotic, not fully conscious human, he abandoned Chalmers, and swayed toward Dennett, whose belief that our consciousness or feeling of consciousness is a byproduct of our biology, and can't be studied in the same way as, say an organ, because its non-tangible and because it can't be studied in quantifiable units, the lack of data leads to meaningless theories.

I think Rothman failed to notice it is modern science that kept his mother alive, it's what kept her physically present, but mentally absent, not God. The science, that leads people to believe manipulates God's power, is whats made his mother's existence drag out. So had his mother died from her stroke, and never entered this phase of existing like an animal of a lesser brain, then he'd have stayed loyal to Chalmer's. It's not the lack of God though that made his mother a zombie, rather its the rise of science. And this discussion is not at all to advocate the decline of science, but rather how the decline of God's presence gives science a greater authority.

Speaking of lesser brains, I just finished reading Collateral Damage, a what-not-to-do-to-your-kids-during-divorce book, not to be confused with the Schwarzenegger film. There is a chapter explaining the need to practice control when engaged in arguments, the author draws a picture of the layered human brain. Too often people resort to their deepest layer, their reptilian brain, when in an argument, and this leads them to be irrational and reckless, which is understandable but should be avoided whenever there are young eyes looking upon the scene. Instead the Neocortex is what we should use when trying to have productive discussions, and remain composed rather than swept up in "fight or flight." Were all just two layers away from cave people.

I read the kids this fun book called, "If You Decide To Go To the Moon," a great story with the same illustrator from one of my favorite children's books, "The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate The Wash." The book talks a lot about space, the moon, earth's uniqueness, and I think does a good job of demonstrating perspective for little minds.
It throws out some astronomy vocabulary, and defines a comet as a chunk of ice. I thought about Halley's Comet, and wondered when it's due to pass earth. I found out it passes earth every 75 years, and returns July 28, 2061. Its existence has been documented since 240 B.C.
The last part reminded me of a scene in the movie, The Truman Show. When Truman is in his car, looking in his rear view mirror. His wife, Laura Linney, sees whats going on with him. At this point in the movie he is cracking, and she's starting to crack too, trying to keep up the ruse. He shows her in the mirror, first the lady on a red bike, then a man with flowers, and then the dented beetle. He explains they just go around, and around, and around. He sings after shouting, "Theres that dented beetle!"
He's learned his world is calculable. After discovering this from watching the rearview mirror, Truman starts his statement to her with, "I predict..."

In my introduction to probability, we discuss conditional probability. This is where you make a prediction under certain conditions, we call these conditions "givens." So the date attached to Halley's return is based on certain conditions being fulfilled, mainly, that it is not thrown off its orbit. But the documented 30 times Halley's Comet has passed earth, provides pretty strong evidence there is nothing threatening its orbit. Really there are conditions set to everything, except for maybe that one thing everyone is striving for.

So imagine watching Halley's Comet orbit, passing earth 30 times, adding up to 2,210 years, and how its predicted to pass again, and again, and again. Forever.

The kids and I have been listening to Taylor Swift's 1989 the last couple weeks. It's a very good album, and if you've made it to 2017 without giving it a listen, I highly recommend it. There are some lyrics though that force me to turn around and give my kids a lesson. During 'Wildest Dreams' she says, "Nothing lasts forever."
Then I turned to the kids and said, "Thats actually not true."
During "Blank Space," Taylor sings, "Boys only want love if it's torture." While still keeping my eyes on the road, I turned around and said to them, I think its a good time to talk about how poetry often uses nonliteral statements.
During 'Bad Blood' Kiki asked, "She lives with ghosts?" It was the perfect example for me to explain idioms.
"No, she doesnt live with ghosts. It's a way for her to explain holding on to to the past."
Kiki didn't really understand because she said, "Right!! She must really like spooky stories!"
"Yeah, thats it!" I laughed.

We had been alternating between Swift's 1989 and the Moana soundtrack, and I decided to mix it up with Ryan Adams 1989. Straight away, when he started on 'Welcome to New York,' Kiki's ears perked up, she recognized the words. Before I could even tell her, "Yes, this is Ryan Adams take on Taylor's jams," she asked, "Does he sing 'Shake it off?'"
"Oh yes he does!!"
After that, we listened to 'Wildest Dreams' and she thought it was brilliant how he swapped out all the male pronouns for female. She makes me laugh.

It took her quite some time to enjoy watching Moana because the daemon Te Ka is terrifying. After she put the pieces together that Te Fiti is Te Ka whose heart has been stolen, she was much more likely to endure the scene where Te Ka crawls toward Moana.
George doesn't get scared like Kiki. She told us she wouldn't see Beauty and the Beast because the beast was too scary, so George and I went after yoga. During the wolves scence he got a bit anxious, but his reaction is always very peculiar. He never closes his eyes, but rather, he puts his hands over his ears.

I took him to watch Kubo and the Two Strings, even though reviews said for mature children only, implying three might be a tad young. George's favorite word is fart-butt (the hyphen makes it one word) so his maturity is just about right for his age. I got nervous when the floating witch sisters came in, but George just covered his ears and watched, took on the scary stuff like a champ.
The most shocking part of the movie was when the credits rolled, and Matthew McConeghey's name came up for the beetle rather than George Clooney. I would have bet my computer on that beetle being Clooney. In fact, Im still having a hard time believing it isn't.

I really love Moana, and the soundtrack. Unlike Frozen, which is an assault on our times, Moana's story is substantive and helpful for kids who have had a relative die. Moana's grandma is the village weirdo, and gives her guidance even after she passes away. It's good to see this on TV, I think it's helpful for children to understand the reliance on their past. I've had dreams where my grandmother comes to talk to me, and those dreams have a significant impact on my present life.

Last week, I dreamed I was running on a straight path with high green hedges on both sides. From what I read, this dream is very, very good, and it shows I'm on the right path. I did come across one obstacle. He was a shaman looking man with pink long hair and a matching pink beard. He wore an enormous velvet coat. When I saw him on the path I was nervous of him. He seemed wayward and threatening. I passed him though, by looking at my feet, and continuing to run. Im not sure what his presence represents. Maybe its from all the homeless people I see in my city. Sacramento, and my suburb, have an enormous homeless population. I understand its mental illness, and an utter lack of resources, that leads people to this state, but I feel unsafe around them. It could be because I sense some are violent, or maybe its because I sense how fragile sanity is. We are just a couple bad decisions away from destitution.

I was happy to have been running in my dream because lately I've been less than motivated. A couple months ago I could have laced up and gone on a spur of the moment ten mile jog, but I've been struggling to get to three miles. I thought it was an issue with my state of mind, but after running six miles yesterday morning I realized, it has more to do with food consumption. Yesterday morning we made pancakes, and I ate the remaining mountain after George poured out 1/3 of our $9 syrup on his plate. I sopped up every remaining drop so it wouldn't be wasted, then had never ending energy on my run. You can have a Michael Phelps workout, given you eat a Michael Phelps breakfast.

The gym is always filled with the usual suspects. Ive been going to this place for over a year, and have done a good job of making only one friend who I have stop-and-chats with. But of course there are obligatory nods and smiles to people I see more often than my parents.
This Friday, a usual smiled at me, and said hi. I see him there all the time. This time though, he seemed more interested after saying hi, like he wanted to chat. While I returned his greeting, I had a moment of panic, "Oh Jeez! This guy wants to fuck me!"
Not even considering this thought was the work of my reptilian brain, I got mad at myself for thinking this. "Alicia, its not normal to jump to this conclusion after someone says hi to you!" Like most instances where I chastise myself, I quickly moved on, and I thought about how he is pretty hot and drives a nice Audi, but it's weird how he always works out in cargo shorts with a Batman seatbelt-buckle belt.

There is a new person at the gym. A little kid whose been coming with her dad. She is maybe 8? I can't really tell, but she's amusing, nonetheless. The first time I saw her she carried along a giant stuffed unicorn to all the workout equipment. By the time she balanced that thing on the machine, then set up her iPad to watch her show, she'd do maybe five minutes on the machine, constantly looking to her dad who had to help adjust her headphones, or the settings. She moved around, doing this on about four different machines. Those 5 minutes to her would feel like 20 to me, so rotating through four machines, was pretty darn impressive.

Its refreshing to find the unusual, and see our world as incalculable. We can count on Halley's comet coming, Friday yoga class, being moved by music, and even your anus being exactly where its supposed to be, but there's not a sure way to calculate when the reptilian brain will start firing out thoughts, or when a Michael Phelps breakfast finds its way to you, and most definitely no way to predict Clooney swapped out for McConaughey. The best take away from Dennett's profile piece is to live a great life because regardless of one's belief on afterlife, consciousness, or eternity, we all remember, you are dust and to dust you will return. It's known, deep in our brain. A given.