| Where the smell was coming from! |
[Nov. 20th, 2004|11:10 am] |
For the last week or so I've been more-or-less tearing apart my apartment to find the source of a horrible smell that's been driving me crazy.
It smelled like someone took clothes-washing powder and spilled it all over my apartment. I couldn't figure out what it was.
I just figured it out.
The smell is coming from my garbage BAGS.
Not from garbage! Let's be totally clear on this! It is coming from the EMPTY BAGS, and it is PUNGENT.
I looked at the box they came in. It says "Fresh Clean Scent!"
I took one out and opened it. The horrible smell of clothes-washing powder instantly filled my home.
Only in America would the bags smell worse than the garbage. |
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| Jen dream |
[Sep. 10th, 2004|11:38 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Naima's Love Song (DJ Spinna Remix)-Betty Carter & DJ Spinna-Verve Remixed 2 | ] |
Last night I had a dream that Jen came back from the dead to talk to me. It was one of those dreams that seems really real, really clear.
She looked good and told me that she was really happy where she was. She had the sort of remoteness that she would get when she was happy, or in love with someone, in the years after she and I had broken up: She didn't seem completely aware of me, or completely engaged with me, but she did seem happy. She was somewhere else. |
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| I broke my ankle! |
[Sep. 6th, 2004|10:35 pm] |
I'm in St. Louis right now.
Yesterday morning I was rollerblading in Forest Park -- there's a really great five-mile loop around the park that I've rollerbladed many times.
I had a freak accident and broke my ankle. The front wheel of my left blade basically got caught, but the rest of me kept moving forward, causing my foot to twist down in an extremely disturbing manner, and to make several horrible loud (to me) noises.
These loud noises internal noises were matched by the loud external noises I started to make, though I like to think that my shrieks of pain were more in the realm of masculine and tough than girly and shriek-y.
A passerby stopped to ask if I was ok (after I stopped screaming) and I confided that it would be well if she took my cell phone out of my pocket and called 911, which she did.
The weird thing is I could SEE the hospital from where I was, but because I was not right on the street, the ambulance had a hard time finding me. We could hear it going by a few times.
A few people stopped to ask if I was OK.
Eventually a cop happened by, and he was cool. 911 called me back to ask where I was, and the cop talked to a person who was apparently extremely mentally deficient on the other end. He did one of those things where you simplify the instructions even more every time you tell them, to the point where you are practically saying, "Ok, you know what a road is, right? It's a big piece of parking lot, that runs in a long thin line." I asked him, "Are these the same geniuses who are going to be working on my foot?" he said no, that was just the dispatcher.
The ambulance showed up and they took off my rollerblade (I was against that idea) and put a brace of sorts on my ankle and put me on a gurney into the van.
We went to the nearby hospital where we went into the emergency room, which was PACKED with people. Then came the comedy of "How can we put him in a wheelchair and elevate his obviously broken foot?"
Barnes Hospital -- where they took me -- is a world leader hospital. AND it happens to be the hospital I was born at, but that's not really relevant here. Anyway, it is at LEAST a five-hundred-million dollar hospital complex.
So of course I had five people trying to gerry-rig my wheelchair to hold up my leg, as they had no system for doing that. Eventually one woman found a piece of cardboard box that I sat on, which stuck out for my leg. To guys, under the supervision of another woman, managed to make a sort of a primitive sling out of a sheet, which they tied to the arm of the chair, under the cardboard, to sort of hold it up. This is what I used all day.
Eventually I was shunted to a waiting room. At this time my friend Paul showed up, too, thankfully.
I spent the next about five hours in waiting rooms, which after a while became more annoying than the crash itself. They wouldn't allow me to eat or drink, "In case the doctor wants to do a procedure."
Occasionally I would be wheeled somewhere, where they took insurance info, x-rayed me (ow!) and so on, but still no doctor, no food, no water, dehydrated from rollerblading and trauma, sitting there with a busted ankle, getting waaay hungry and cross, etc. Oh, and it was really really cold in there, too. PLUS, there was no cell phone signal.
At the same time, I was clear I really had very little to complain about. There were people there with REAL problems, and I couldn't help but remember the last time I'd been in a hospital was a few weeks ago, watching Jen die. Compared to that (and some of the stuff I saw there), I realized I had very little to complain about.
BUT at the same time, it was true that I had just had real trauma and they were doing what they could to WEAKEN me. The waiting became pretty long. One guy there, who had internal bleeding, got fed up and LEFT -- perhaps not the smartest move he could have made, but understandable if you were actually IN the circumstances.
For some reason a lot of the nurses were quite beautiful, and all married. The one who did my ex-rays -- and who told me that my ankle was broken in two places -- told me that they'd probably need to do surgery and "put me under." She said, I swear, "I love general anesthesia. It's the best sleep you'll ever have. I've had three operations in the last two years!" She kind of had that Morticia Addams attitude going.
Around five thirty (I got there about 1115) They took me into an observation room and I saw a doctor, who said the funniest thing of the day: "In real life, you'll keep this foot elevated."
She put a temporary cast on it (I need to see a surgeon in Madison, and probably get surgery on it), and at one point they gave me two pills, which I took, before thinking to ask, "what was that?" It turned out it was two percecets, which are pretty powerful pain killers and I really should have only taken ONE, I knew that right away.
So at last they discharge me, and I'm thinking, "the first thing I want to do is eat some food and drink some water." I'm waiting by the external door for my friend Paul to bring the car around, and....and....
Suddenly I'm profoundly dizzy. Very nauseated. Cold sweat. Feeling very cold. I gracefully slide out of the wheel chair onto the floor, where a security guard says "Should I get someone? You don't look too good lying there."
One of the nurses comes out, and I manage to opine "this is a reaction to the hunger and dehydration and the pills you gave me."
They said, "Do you want to come back in?" and I said "Not if I have to wait another five hours, forget it!" It was weird, it was like, I'd rather take my chances in paul's car than deal with all that again. They said no, they'd look at me right now, so I said OK.
They took me back in and I started passing out again in the chair as they were taking my blood pressure (which was really really low, though I don't remember what it was), and I'm sort of gasping "lie...down...now..."
We went BACK to the observation room where they gave me some food and water and I started feeling better. The doctor concurred that it was a reaction to the pills they gave me. Eventually we left. I called my brother to tell him about the accident, and had to hold the phone away from my ear for like 30 seconds as he screamed. That didn't actually help me much, but at least I knew it was coming.
Tomorrow my brother is driving me back to Madison, a really big favor -- I won't be driving my stickshift for a while!
So that's my story. I am remarkably helpless now. I can hardly walk, steps are impossible (practically), and I cant do things like carry anything while moving. Etc.
So the next few months should be interesting! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 20th, 2004|10:13 am] |
I'm home! Got home yesterday, but didn't really do anything, it was pretty much a travel day.
I've got some work that has to be handled today but I'm really, REALLY gonna try to have a couple of days completely off this week.
I INSTANTLY felt better once we got down to denver at 5000 feet. It's great to be able to, you know, generally EXIST again, though I do have a left-over headache today. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 17th, 2004|03:59 pm] |
The altitude is playing unpleasant games with me. I was doing fine this morning. Great, even. Energetic (as much as I can be, up here), feeling good.
Then headache...not like the ones I usually get. Different somehow, a thin pain in my temples. Then by noon a gathering weakness, leading seamlessly into some mild form of dementia. Fogginess and lightheaded and confused. And feeling guilty for not being more "on the ball." People started asking me if I was feeling all right, and finally I came back to the hotel -- 15 minutes of driving and 500 feet lower -- to sleep. It was one of those sleeps where the body just goes unconscious wherever you've flung it, awkwardly positioned on the bed, a black curtain comes down and that's it for over an hour. Waking in the same position, feeling somewhat better. Still have the headache, and this is on four Advils. But less spacey and possibly could get up some time soon.
While I know it is really the altitude that is getting to me, it is an unpleasant reflection of my lack of energy for the work we are doing, when I am there. I'm in a room with 20 org dev people, talking about doing work with corporations and organizations, and I'm just not into it. Some of that is surely from the symptoms I'm experiencing...I sure am a lot more into it when I'm feeling good, and a hell of a lot less into it when I'm feeling bad. But at the same time, a big part of me just wants to be home, working on internet marketing projects, and spending time with my friends. This other stuff, I either don't have enough intention to really believe in it, or I don't believe in it enough to have a serious intention of success with it. Or I just plain don't get it. Of the four leaders, I have the least experience, and the least to say, even when I am feeling on. So this may not work out long term anyway.
True to Cliff form, the workshop went from six-thirty to 11 last night, and will go from 9am to probably ten or ten thirty tonight, and then there's tomorrow. So much working!
I am looking forward to coming home! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 16th, 2004|11:53 pm] |
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1145pm. Feeling better now. We got started and there's good energy in the room. It's started!! That's good. |
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| NOT a vacation |
[Jul. 16th, 2004|11:02 am] |
Still in Colorado, our workshop begins tonight.
Today I feel a weird balance inside, if balance is the right word for it. On the one hand I feel the desire to focus on the masculine side, and what's most important to that -- being able to construct a living, to be able to take care of a woman, a family. From that point of view, I find myself wanting to spend every spare moment studying internet marketing.
On the other side there's the more feminine principle -- simply wanting to take care of myself, to connect to love, and most, very most important, to HAVE SOME SORT OF VACATION.
I had an hour-and-a-half massage last night, and it was great. It really fed my lover archetype.
But this morning I wake up and there's still that tiredness. That need for more "taking care of". For more lover archetype connection. For a period of time in which I'm not working on anything -- not working on internet marketing stuff, not working on non-internet marketing stuff. Not working on important stuff, not working on unimportant stuff.
So I feel like I'm left being able to perhaps barely do what needs to be done, the work that is in front of me that must be done, not even the most important work. And at the same time I do feel some connection to the ideal feminine, to that kind of joy, to that oneness and connection.
But I think the order of operations is going to look a lot more like this: Do and finish this weekend. Find a way to take a couple of days as "off" as humanly possible. Then start up on the marketing stuff, once my mind and body are fresh again.
Boy is this NOT a vacation. It's working and traveling, at altitude, for free. |
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| Hey! A post! |
[Jul. 15th, 2004|01:14 pm] |
July 14, 2004, 1025 pm, in Colorado.
CHECK IT OUT! A post!
Lately I haven't been "taking the time" to do the things that are good for me. I've been more likely to let the supposed lack of time take me; to NOT do the things that might be good for my sanity or morale, simply because of a continuing belief that I don't have the time.
But now, I'm deciding I have the time. I'm tired of not exercising -- don't have the time, have too much work to do! Not cooking -- don't have the time, too much work to do! Not cleaning, or picking up after myself, or even getting new kitty litter for Supercat -- no time! no time! no time! I've had it.
I think it might be possible that I've overcommitted and overextended myself. That's certainly part of it. I'm trying to do too many things. But also some of it is a matter of what I let overwhelm me. I'm thinking I could make moment to moment choices differently, and do more of the important-but-skippable things that contribute to my sanity.
Which leads me to writing in my journal, for the first time in quite a while.
Relaxing.
I'm in Colorado on the side of a mountain at about 8,100 feet of altitude. Breathing the rarified air. The house I'm in overlooks a valley called "South Park," believe it or not. It's pretty.
I'm here with Cliff and Jeff and Rich, getting ready for a workshop we are running this weekend on effective organizational change. More specifically, it's about how to help organizations--mostly meaning businesses, here--find their spirituality and bring it to some sort of positive fulfillment. Quite the dream. I've been around people for more than fifteen years who keep talking about "bringing this spiritual work into business," all-the-while watching business consistently NOT want that, thank you very much. But we are giving it a go, and there are some aspects to our model which are at the very least interesting, and more realistic than other projects like this I've seen, so it has a chance.
We have 17 people coming here for the weekend for a dealie that I still don't really understand. Each person is putting in a thousand bucks, but if they decide NOT to "affiliate" with us (whatever that ends up meaning), they get their money back. We will probably end up at least breaking even, certainly Cliff will put some money in his pocket. Me, I'll be happy if this doesn't end up costing me anything. Pay my airfare and my food and I'm happy just to have learned stuff.
It reminds me a little bit of when I started working with Cliff, back in the late 80s. He knew all this great stuff and I didn't, so I staffed his weekends for free (a LOT) in order to learn it. Well, his current model of organizational (and personal, while we are at it) change is pretty impressive, and I've decided it's worth staffing for free to get another look at it.
But I'm not sure how to think about it for me. At this point in my life, I really want to focus on things that could help me take care of a family. I'm not sure, at this point, how this group does that. It's certainly worth the risk for the stuff that I'm learning and the experiences I'm having...But at the same time the vagueness of it, combined with my lack of belief that it will make money for me, puts me in a weird position in relationship to it.
I don't feel like my lack of belief is coming from a "doomed" space. More of a space of having observed Cliff for many years. But I don't know.
Tonight we went to dinner at a great restaurant in this small town that served ONE thing on the menu -- Filet mignon. It was great, and really pretty cheap. On the weekends they serve ONE other thing, some other kind of steak. And with all that practice, they are actually pretty good at it. |
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| getting a little too real |
[May. 26th, 2004|03:03 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Fellowship of the Ring Music-Lord of the Rings-Lord of the Rings | ] |
I was watching TV with my parents this morning and they were interviewing Dennis Quaid about his new environmental disaster movie, "The Day after Tomorrow."
But in the middle of it the National Weather Service broke in with a hailstorm warning.
Getting a little too real. |
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| Haven't posted in a while |
[Apr. 9th, 2004|04:44 pm] |
It's amazing what's going on in my life right now. The big challenge is to allow things to take as long as they take. I'm so excited about what is possible that I just want to work all the time, and even that doesn't seem like enough.
Since the internet marketing seminar I went too, I've been:
- Participating in teleclasses each week
- studying the video of the course I took
- Reading several books on writing ad copy
- Rethinking every aspect of our business from a "market" point of view, rather than a "product" point of view"
- Getting my Dan Kennedy copywriting course off the videotapes and onto my ipod
- putting up a totally new site for some of our products
- setting up complicated ways to TRACK everything that happens
- setting up web-based feedback systems from our customers
- writing an email autoresponder class
- reworking our potential offers
- studying studying studying
- dealing with writing HTML pages, popup windows, formmail scripts, etc. etc.
- testing testing testing
- researching potential markets for new products
- Working with my friend Paul
- writing sales material
...and just generally having my mind blown by how much I'm learning, and how quickly I want to learn more.
My goal is:
- to become an better-than-average copywriter
- to become better-than-average at setting up "offers"
- to become better than average at finding new markets and creating products for them.
...all as quickly as possible, because I'm INTO IT!!!
Ultimately, I want to be a guy who can take any idea and find tons of new opportunities in it, and who can help my self, my friends, loved ones, etc., make money and have success spreading their message and having fun being entrepreneurs.
So I'm finding I grudge every hour away from doing this stuff. The time I would usually spend hanging out, or reading fiction, or whatever, I'm continually like, "I need to be doing my internet stuff!"
So that's what I'm up to. |
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| I guess we'll have to "bear the grunt..." |
[Apr. 6th, 2004|04:15 pm] |
"He's not the brightest cookie in the lamp."
"Predicting is difficult, especially when it involves the future."
"That thing was jumping up and down like a sieve."
"We will be downsizing, and hopefully people will be leaving through nutrition."
"Hold on; the roller coaster is just leaving the dock."
"I have a photogenic memory and a near-genius IQ!"
"I've got a bone in my bonnet about this."
"They are raising the bar and they want us to jump through it."
"We've burned the first bridge, but we're not out of the woodwork yet."
"Well, you finished that project by the skin of your pants!"
"That idea went over like a ball of wax."
"You still have two minutes, as the crow flies."
A basketball player recently commented that since his trade, "Everything has been peaches and gravy."
"It's not wrong; it's just not specific enough."
My boss tried to compliment my memory the other day, with the assertion that I "must have a real data suppository in my head."
"Not the sharpest knife in the deck."
"Off the cuff of my head, I don't know."
"He's been beating his head around the bush for a long time."
From the classroom: "Mr. Black, how many undiscovered islands are left in the world?"
"Everybody's got oxen to grind."
"Each of you pitched a home run today!" |
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| In St. Louis |
[Mar. 27th, 2004|05:50 pm] |
I just got back from an exhausting day with my family. I love my family, and we get along well, but that was just plain tiring.
Today we spread my grandmother's ashes. I stayed in a hotel last night--MUCH better than sleeping on a mat in the hall at my parents!--and went there at 10am. We got into our cars and drove about an hour and a half to Bonne Terre, MO, where my grandmother and grandfather had a home many years ago. It's a place with lots of nature and lakes and we all have a lot of good memories about it.
We found a beautiful place with a little waterfall and woods, and all said some stuff and spread the ashes and it really was great. Really couldn't have been much better, actually.
But THEN we decided to get something to eat...and this, my friends, rapidly crossed into the realm of great, great folly.
For some reason--I think it was respect--we asked my grandmother's boyfriend where HE thought we should eat (also, he's lived around there). We followed him for a while, to a place that was another ten or so minutes FARTHER from St. Louis, but okay. We came to a place on the highway where there was a Sonic burger, McDonalds, Imo's Pizza, and a whole slew of other places. He found this run-down looking "family restaurant who's non-smoking area consisted of a little corner of a big room full of overweight, ugly, chain-smoking people. My aunt is very allergic to cigarette smoke, so we decided to leave (but not before outloading my dad into his wheelchair!).
My grandmother's boyfriend said he knew of ANOTHER place, just a little bit MORE away from St. Louis, so we got into the cars again and, leaving behind a plethora of places that would have been fine to eat at, we went to YET ANOTHER horrible country dump. This time we just sent people in to check it out. Smokey, horrible, dirty, etc. etc.
At this point we were all getting really hungry and stupid and kind of crazy, evidence for which will be coming up momentarily. We have a pow-wow--everyone simultaneously wanting to take leadership and advocate for what they want AND trying to be submissive to what everyone else wanted--and decide that the car I'm in (but not driving) is the "lead car" and the others will just follow us to whatever place we decide to eat. As we are pulling out, my aunt (also in the car) suggests, "Hey, why don't we let the car your mom is in be the lead car?", but as they are already pulling out, this bit of politeness is not able to cause the trouble it would if my mom had been able to hear it and attempt to respond with politeness in kind.
So we start to get on the road, and instantly we notice something: There's a car going by on the road that looks just like ours! The next thing we notice is the car with my grandmother's boyfriend in it, screaming by us in an attempt to follow the doppelgänger car. They go screaming off in hot pursuit of "us," and we follow, watching them disappear over the horizon.
At this point I was getting really hungry and stupid, so it's good I wasn't driving. The same thing was apparently happening in my parent's car, though, because a few moments later we see a car that looks just like my grandmother's boyfriend's car go by, very fast--hotly pursued by MY MOTHER'S CAR. A few miles later we find my parents car by the side of the road, their "lead car" apparently having turned off.
Eventually we did find our way to a chinese restaurant a few blocks from my parent's house. Now I'm exhausted and much as I love my family, could use a little break from them. I think I'll spend this evening with my friend Paul and his wife. |
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| Monday |
[Mar. 22nd, 2004|02:57 pm] |
I'm back from running a workshop in Chicago. Very tired today.
It's amazing to see how much the system seminar is impacting my thinking. I see the difference everywhere. It like OBVIOUS that after this seminar I just ran, we'd send a follow-up email with some "Free bonuses", a list of upcoming workshops, and an "expires in one week" discount on signing up for future workshops. It seems like a no-brainer now to start a newsletter for folks who've done workshops with me as a way of building trust and selling future products. It was a no-brainer to record parts of the workshop I just ran to see if I can use the recordings in some way.
Being in the realm of the system stuff has also really put me in the mind of "adding value for the customer without adding much work for the provider." On this training last week I made a point to make as many handouts as I could (not much work) and to also print out the main handouts at kinkos on 3 foot by 4 foots sheets of paper. They looked GREAT and added to the sense of "value and forethought" of the whole thing. Now I'll send out thank yous and links to those documents online and an invitation for them to share them with their friends, as well as adiscount on the next seminar if they sign up in the next week, etc. |
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| Written Saturday night:
Written Saturday night:
Written Saturday night |
[Mar. 22nd, 2004|02:55 pm] |
It's Saturday night at 950, after the first day of the workshop. It went great!
I'm teaching a Process Work Facilitation Training. Here in Chicago. This morning the community here had an "Open carpet work morning," which meant that anyone could come to it and get worked on. David (my co-leader) and I broke it into two carpets and we each lead some processes.
It was really fun. I don't get to actually RUN process work that much, and in all the world it is probably the one thing I'm best at. I've worked really hard for many many years at it, and am just naturally gifted at it, and today I really got to shine, which felt great. I ran some awesome work, if I do continuously say so myself. I really felt like I could feel inside these guys' minds. This one guy I was telling him about his life (we had never met, but I recognized his wound), what it had been like for him, and he just started crying allowing himself to receive blessing. I felt quite lucky to be able to do that work.
Then we taught a bunch of beginners. My new "bottom line carpet work" approach is working GREAT. WAAAY better than my old approach, which was in itself a quantum leap above just about everything else out there, so I'm feeling pretty "fat and sassy" about it. People are really learning a lot. I'm pleased.
So afterwards we all went out to dinner, and that was another burger and french fries which I'm already sick of. Then we came back here to a friend's house where we are staying. As I got up at 445 this morning, I'm now getting ready for bed (or for "couch", in this case). |
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