Captainwow

Friday, February 27, 2004

What Book Are YOU?




I'm The Guns of August!

by Barbara Tuchman

Though you're interested in war, what you really want to know is what
causes war. You're out to expose imperialism, militarism, and nationalism for what they
really are. Nevertheless, you're always living in the past and have a hard time dealing
with what's going on today. You're also far more focused on Europe than anywhere else in
the world. A fitting motto for you might be "Guns do kill, but so can
diplomats."



Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Love

Click HERE to read about love -- Steve has a great quote here. Scroll down to February 22.

I'm grateful to have people in my life that I've learned this from.
Still learning......

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Smellin' Smells

A minute ago I became aware of many smells.
I smell....
the coffee that's sitting in a cup on my desk
the vanilla flavored creamer in the coffee
the "magic potion" candle on my desk
Mom's Avon Skin So Soft oil I used this morning in the shower
Pert shampoo
Burt's Bees Peppermint chapstick
Gain laundry detergent that I washed my clothes in
Spartan Mountain Fresh dryer sheets the clothes were dried with
the Glade plug in that's in the office across from mine
Toner
the carbon smell of the 3 part invoices I print on

That seems like a recipe for sensory overload when I write it down like that.
Good thing my brain and my sniffer have a friendly relationship for the time being.

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

That Matilda!

Tune in my head : Waltzing Matilda




Can you hear it now? GOOD!




Monday, February 23, 2004

Poetry Unmotion

you said
what you said
then looked startled
tacitly retracting
something so sentimental
as if you'd accidentally
walked out the door
naked
i am
confused and wanting
needing what you almost gave

Citric Passing

Pierre has finally been laid to rest. He went quietly and peacefully. I wrapped him in Kleenex and buried him under a McDonald's bag in my garbage can. It seemed briefly like it might be good to shoot him up with over-proofed rum or butane and make a little wooden raft for him and light it, sending him floating off down the river like a Viking. But alas there wasn't really time for that since it was nearly 5PM when he passed on and I had to go home. I think he'd be OK with his more humble departure.

Thanks to all who came and visited him in his last hours, I know it meant a lot to him.

Thursday, February 19, 2004

Postal Sex

In case I haven't mentioned it yet I do not enjoy going to the post office. For any reason whatsoever. I like stamps. I like the people at the counter. They're ever so nice at the one I go to -- efficient enough, but they recently closed one post office so now everyone from everywhere has to go there and I hate waiting in line and it smells funny in there too.

So anyway.

I drove to the post office today in my usual postage frame of mind. Parked, got out of the car, and stood in line until called upon. The woman waiting on me had spiky short burgundy hair and a hungarian accent. Sweet lady, I think I remember her from last year when I went in there too. (I told you I hate the post office) I needed stamps for my wedding invitations so I asked if they had any cool ones, like for wedding invitations. "OH!" She said, "You're getting MARRIED!?" And pulled out three different stamp designs and began chatting up a storm with me. So we did the transaction and then she leaned forward and whispered "I know the perfect book for you."
I leaned forward and whispered "What book is that?"
And she said "you must read Feeding Your Husband by Dr. Slessinger. I got it for my daughter but I'm reading it first and it's really good."
Then she stopped whispered and said very loudly and enthusiastically:
"I think that if you read that book you'll have LOTS OF SEX!"
I was stunned, had nothing to say to that until she realized what she'd said and recovered by saying even louder, "SUCCESS!!! SUCCESS!!!" "I meant to say SUCCESS!!"
There was this brief silence while everyone tried to figure out if they could laugh or not - and to our great relief, she laughed.
And then, the whole post office was full of people doubled over laughing.
That, my friends - is the MOST fun I've EVER had at the post office!

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

He Had A Good Life

Pierre has finally become odiferous. He's lookin as handsome as ever but his ripeness wafts even to the ends of my office and the hallway and beyond, causing comments along the way. I fear this is an indication that the end is near.
It's sort of a strong, citrus-y smell, which is normally fine except we have grapefruit scented bathroom spray in the bathroom here at work so the atmosphere it evokes is not necessarily of French cuisine.
Sadly, this means that soon we will perform a burial of sorts for Pierre. I haven't contacted the press yet because I want his last day or days to be peaceful and paparazzi-free for a change.
We'll be quietly listening for any last words of wisdom, and letting go, and remembering the good times.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

I just GOT THIS CD and it ROCKS! Classic Meets Cuba <----- click that link to surf on over to Sony and hear samples.
LET's DANCE!!

Monday, February 16, 2004

"DOH!"

Do you ever do something and have it not turn out so well so you say to yourself, "Self: Don't do this again." But then you forget and do it anyway - maybe even with more flair and finesse even and the same thing happens again only it hurts even worse and you sit yourself down and in a very firm but kind voice say "Now Self: I know you're hurting right now but we need to talk. You need to calm down and listen to me. Don't you remember last time when this happened and how that felt and how you reminded yourself you wouldn't do that again? And you did it again. Well, don't do it again for real next time. Next time when you get that nagging feeling in the back of your mind that this might not go so well, REMEMBER THIS FEELING and Do Not, under any circumstances ignore your gut and repeat this scene."

I think Going Jesus calls it a clue stick. Maybe I've got it this time now that I've been clubbed over the head with the same one twice. We'll see.

Sunday, February 15, 2004

Bridal Moment!

Wow, yesterday I had a bridal moment. I almost cried right there in the chapel. Lois is doing flowers for my wedding so we went to look at the chapel so she could see what was up and allthat. I was standing there looking at this chapel in a different way than I ever had. I've been in there lots of times, it's also a recital facility (with awesome acoustics, by the way) for GVSU. I even stood up in a wedding there when my college room mate Jenny got married in 1993. She and I both played there in chamber concerts, etc. I'd even looked at it with the general idea of my wedding in mind, booked it and printed the name on the invitations but still yesterday seeing it for the first time with specifics in mind was amazing. This time, I was there to really SEE it with OUR wedding in mind and in my imagination I could see Marci and Tina and Pat will standing over there, and Tim and Don and Todd over there and there'll be flowers over there and the piano will be here and little Jacob and Dove will be so cute and the light will shine in from that direction and it will be full of friends and family and I'll be standing right there and Kevin will stand right there next to me and John will stand in front of us all and ohmygoshicanhardlybelievethisishappeningforreal!

Friday, February 13, 2004

Getting ready for Summer?? Check this out: Flip Flop Socks!

It's Friday again, and in case you've been wondering about Pierre, he's doing quite well. He's been quiet - and has been moved to the filing cabinet but ht's looking mighty handsome on his perch In front of the Monet Print next to all the Paid Invoices that need to be Filed.

And the carnation - is still looking good. With close inspection you can see some of the petals are a tiny bit past their prime but this Smirnoff sucking flower is amazing the crap out of all of us! 4 weeks old and counting!
Kevin and I are still working out - you should see our biceps! We look great! - er, well HE does. I look the same but my pants fit more comfortably now and that's a good thing!

My guts are a little calmer than earlier this week but still not 100% happy with whatever it is they have been grumpy about. I no speakie Intestinese very well.

Yesterday, if you noticed, my mood was Dandy. Last time I was Dandy before that was November 25. Before Thanksgiving and my inner shit storm that sent me off to Pluto and back. If you want to talk about a Pendulum swing - I was the Captain Wow-Hook with a severe hemorrhoid that had never heard of the Dalai Lama. So even if I am hanging in the middle more these days, with fewer wild reactions to life, It appears I'm still susceptible to the occasional transformation into Psycho Me.

Oh ya, and being on Prozac helps too.
Of course there's that. hehe. But I'd like to think it's my spiritual maturity that's helping me be more even keeled.

Ahem!

In other news, There are 85 days to The Wedding. 95 things to do and - 685 optional things to do that I'm just not going to mess with.

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

Rocking the Boat


Been talking with some folks in my life about healthy detachment, that idea of letting other people live their lives and not getting sucked into their vortex but still caring. Having good boundaries without building walls. In one essay I read, it stated this:

" The healthier we get, the more emotional healing we do, the less extreme
our emotional reaction / response spectrum grows. The growth process
works kind of like a pendulum swinging. The less we buy into the toxic
shame and judgment, the less extreme the swings of the pendulum become.
The arc of our emotional pendulum becomes gentler, and we can return to
emotional balance much quicker and easier. But we don't get to stay in
the balance position. Life is always rocking our boat - setting our
emotional pendulum to swinging. By not taking life events and other
peoples behavior so seriously and personally, by observing our process
with some degree of detachment instead of getting so hooked into the
trauma drama soap opera victimology that is a reaction to our childhood
wounds, we learn to not give so much power over our emotions to outside
influences and events. "
-Robert Burney

It made me think of something that happened once while canoeing. Can't say that I'm really good at canoeing but I like being on the water and I like that the canoe FEELS so tippy yet if you know a little of what you're doing it's very unlikely to capsize. The first time I was in a canoe I hung onto the sides for dear life and was so nervous about tipping that I couldn't relax and enjoy the ride. Once I got used to it, it wasn't so bad. Later, I took someone for a canoe ride down a river and she was the nervous one. We were going along at a fairly good clip down the river when she panicked and grabbed onto a nearby branch, instantly pulling herself right out of the canoe and dumping everything including me right into the river. All the rest of her life experiences had taught her to do that. Grab the first thing that looks stable when you feel out of control. But in this case it was the opposite of that was the safest thing to do.

When I'm feeling out of control, or see someone else getting out of control my first instinct is to grab them or if it's me I want to latch onto the first thing that sticks itself out in front of me and says "hold on here". It sometimes takes everything in me to keep my hands feet and head inside my own ride but when I remember finally to breathe and to pray and to stop grabbing, It's so much more peaceful. The pendulum swing for me looks like a drowning, terrified Captain Hook on the one end and the meditative smiling Dalai Lama at the other. I'm hanging out somewhere in the middle more these days and that's a good thing.

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Gut Feeling

They say when in doubt go with your gut. Well today my physical guts are telling me - no that would be YELLING - for me to go back to bed and stay there for a good long while. I'd say that my guts are depressed. Grumbling and pouting over everything I give them like surly teenagers, waiting for the sun to come out and blaming everything on the month of February.

I'm telling them too dang bad we're UP we're at work and we're going to like it!
So there.

Monday, February 09, 2004

Random Boldness

Not sure how everything on my blog suddenly decided to be randomly bold and unbold. But hey. Whatever, it all reads the same, right?
There's a grapefruit on my desk today with a face on it. Scott got tired of it sitting there so he put eyes and a moustache on it. And then Amy came along and made a chef had out of kleenex. His name is now Pierre.
I may not be able to eat him now, he has a face, and an accent and personality.
There's also a carnation on my credenza that the Mary Kay ladies brought in when they were trying to get us all to sign up for a "free makeover.". I took the flower and declined to sign up for the makeover. Shame on me, but the flower is STILL amazing. That was 3 Fridays ago and the thing looks as good as new. My theory is that it is because I placed it in a Smirnoff Green Apple Twist Bottle. There must have been a little of the drink left in there and it's preserving the flower. So maybe instead of that little bit of powdered flower food they give at the florist they should give a shot of Smirnoff Green Apple flavored Vodka drink.
One for the flowers and one for me.... WEEEE!

Friday, February 06, 2004

A Mindful Beauty, or A Beautiful Mind?

It's been a very intense week personally. But really GOOD at the same time. God's amazing that way.
Mind if I tell you a little about it?? I've heard about people screwing themselves by over-blogging and I hope that's not what I'm about to do here but I have been in a pattern lately of not writing anything personal. So, if you're up for it, I am too.

Have you ever seen A Beautiful Mind? KA Roommate and I watched it again recently. I hadn't seen it since It was in the theater. Even when I watched it then, I remember relating very much to how John Nash consciously made the choice to ignore the people in his mind.
He said: "I still see things...I just choose not to acknowledge them...it's like a diet of the mind...I choose not to induldge in certain appetites."
It was a choice. I loved how they portrayed that he chose his path and though thse people still hung out in the corners of his mind he purposely ignored them and they became powerless.

This last year the phrase from Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing has meant something to me that it never did before.
"Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wand'ring heart to Thee."
-- that never made any sense to me before. I knew in my head that God was good. "God is Good and God is Great and we thank him for our food " -- or however that went. "God is a good God." I've read that and I've heard it and been taught it my whole life. But my logic told me God could not really be that good, if the world looks like this. And if MY being good still left me in pain and needy -- well then I wanted no part of it!
I still don't have an answer for that. There is no answer for that. How does a Good God allow what takes place in this world? Well, it's complex, and it's simple and it's something we can't know - not being God ourselves. I accept by faith that God really is Good or I don't.

Here's another quote from the movie:
"Sylvia: How big is the universe?
John: Infinite.
Sylvia: How do you know for sure?
John: I don't, I just believe it. "

I know me, and how I got here. It's not rocket science - I'm a textbook case of how someone can grow up to be me. I've always known why I am the way I am, but it gave me no power to make the right choices. Sure I could white knuckle it through life but I didn't want to do that either. What point is there in that? So eventually I learned that what I needed was healing for my mind and my heart because I knew that God knew what my wounds were even when I didn't. That path has led me to this place where I can have the strength (should I accept it) to choose to say no to patterns that are destructive to me and to others, and it gives me hope that I will be more consistant with that all the time.

What's interesting is that what God chooses to heal is hardly ever what I expect, but the astounding thing is that in the healing of one thing, another thing becomes smaller and yet another, better thing grows larger - miraculous.

In the movie, there is a scene where Sylvia (John's wife) decides to stay with John, and she says "I have to believe that something extraordinary can happen." And it's really quite the same with me. To commit to this path, I must believe that something extraordinary can happen. To wait for something extraordinary to happen before I commit means I may never know what might have been.

It smells like Friday in here!

Can I tell you how glad I am that it's Friday!?
Yesterday I left work early for sanity reasons. Nothing was wrong, the day was fine I just couldn't take one more moment of being there. I should explain to you that I have an awesome office - complete with windows, my own personal comforts, including a coffee maker/ espresso machine and my very own kick ass stereo speakers. Tunes and Coffee -- what could make a day go better than that? So it's not that I don't like being there. It was just one of those days, and I needed to be at HOME. So I went, unintentionally blowing off getting ready for a Friday AM meeting. Turns out the meeting was cancelled so it's all dandy.
This morning I stopped at the Coffee Jam and got some French Roast coffee, even though I was already late for work because of crappy roads... It struck me as a good Friday thing to do. Work provides Starbucks - but it's the mild house blend and that's sure better than Maxwell House, but it just doesn't have that full bodied ooomph that I'm looking for in the mornings. - Especially if I've been drinking KA roommate's brew. If you've had the pleasure of coffee at our house, you know what I'm talking about. Otherwise, imagine the best coffee you've ever had and then multiply it by 2 or 3. In some cases you might have to raise it to the 4th or 5th power. Depends on what you're used to drinking and what you like, I suppose. All that to say that I am drinking some durn good coffee today and I've got the I'm SO GLAD it's Friday feeling going on.

91 days to the Wedding.
95 things to do.

Best google lately: Someone googled me the other day looking for A CIRCUS PEANUTS RECIPE!. I'm so happy to be of service!

Tuesday, February 03, 2004

Told me so

We did it!
We went and worked out, I and Kevin and our muscles.
My muscles are reluctantly admitting they're glad they went even though they whined all the way there in the car.
I think they're actually a little embarassed now about the way they wimpered and begged.
Afterwards they were so excited they chattered about it all night and I barely slept, so I'm a bit snarky this morning from so little sleep.
But it's ok. We bonded with the machines and sweated and puffed, and we saw that it was good.

Monday, February 02, 2004

Lullaby

Last night I didn't sleep all that great, in case you were wondering. It's not an uncommon thing for me to operate in debt to my sleep bank, and that's not why I'm mentioning it.
Probably it's because I didn't really do much active yesterday or any other day in recent memory.
But tonight.
Tonight, we are going to work OUT. Gonna go. Hafta go. Gotta do it.

So today I'm telling my muscles how great it is going to be to get back on the elliptical thingy and be out of breath and feel oxygen deprived. And how great it will feel to crunch the ab machine to death and how excited they get when they're working and pumping iron and getting big and strong.
They're not buying it.
But we're going anyway.
And tonight, I will sleep.