Bend and stretch, reach for the stars

Man, it's been some time since I last wrote. Such a good blogger, aren't I?

So, "bend and stretch, reach for the stars"... what does it refer to? Well, the phrase comes from a Romper Room song that I remember watching as a little kid. Maybe I don't specifically remember it, but people in my family do. We have a freakishly long memory when it comes to inane trivia like songs from TV shows. I know things about when my mom and her brothers and sisters were kids that I should never know, but my mom remembered and told us, so now we remember.

But back to bending and stretching ... in the last 5 weeks or so, I've actually been (gasp!) working out. Yep, I joined a gym and even hired a personal trainer. I'm still not overly fond of exercise, but I felt that since I was going on a grand vacation that required me to be a bit active, I should work on my endurance and stamina. So now I go to the gym at least 3 times a week to do some cardio work and some weight training. I can honestly say I've never been so invested in doing something physical like this. It's not like I *like* doing this, but I feel a sense of accomplishment when I finish a workout. I hate getting sweaty, I having to do some much laundry (trust me, you don't want to wear anything you've worked out and sweated in twice!), I hate carving out all the time to do the workout, but that sense of accomplishment is a nice little rush. To date, I've never gotten that "runner's high", that rush of adrenaline when I exercise, but I have to honest. I probably don't push myself like some elite athlete.

I've joined many, many gyms in the past: 24-Hour Fitness, Gold's Gym, the YMCA ... but they have all languished after a month of attendance. (Yet, since I probably paid for a year's membership, the money still got taken out of my checking account faithfully each month.) The difference this time is the money I'm spending for a personal trainer. Currently I meet with her twice a week, to keep my momentum up. I need to feeling of an obligation to another person to ensure that I keep working out. I think that after my grand vacation, I may go down to once a week, but I definitely like having someone prod me to do the work.

My therapist suggested that, since I have such an aversion to exercise, to not expect myself to love it, but to at least tolerate it. Tolerating is good. I think that's why the little rush from the sense of accomplishment exists. It also helps that my blood pressure is a bit down as well as my blood sugar. Health benefits ... who knew? ;-)

Another day, another dollar

Working. A necessary evil, is it not? I'm lucky. I have a lot of autonomy at my job. I can basically come and go as I please, as long as my work gets done. Even better, my boss is 50 miles away from me in another office. I keep my little office door closed here and just putter along. I do my work, don't get me wrong. But ... I also read stuff online, web surf, listen to internet radio, shop ... just pass the time. I leave early, too. Yet strangely enough, people think I really work hard. No, I just work smart.

I got my first job at 15. I kidsat/housecleaned for a couple who had a 9-year old boy. I'd get there before he got home from school and do some minor kitchen cleanup. When he came home, I'd give him a snack and then just watch TV until his parents came home. I did this Mon-Thu, with Thursday being a long night, because the parents had "date night". I didn't really like the kid too much and I hated cleaning up, but hey, a job is a job. I watched a LOT of TV ... Wild Wild West, Star Trek, 3:00 movies, etc.

My first real job (you know, taxes taken out, etc.) was at a Jack-in-the-Box. Later on, as I developed my "fast food" skills, I also worked at a Carl's Jr. Man, fast food is akin to slave labor. You do a lot of work for not so much money. Back in the day, minimum wage was $2.65/hour. I remember when I got a raise to $2.90/hour. Woo hoo. I was rolling in the dough, then!

I've had various jobs over the years, depending on school load, etc. I worked for a small family-owned direct mail company, in the college bookstore and print shop, as a receptionist for an attorney. My first post-college job was as a receptionist for a software services company. From there, I went to become an executive secretary at a printing plant. At the printing plant, I moved into customer service (which morphed into "client services" and looks more today like program management work).

I currently work at a software company as a program manager. Basically, a good job for the anally retentive. I can be hyper-organized when I need to be and that comes out well at work.

So ... I guess I should get back to it. See, I even write blog posts while I'm at work. I'm truly a model employee.

I'm gonna pump ... you up!

So this month I joined a gym and hired a personal trainer. WTF, right? If you know me, then you know that I'm definitely not the workout type nor a personal trainer person. But ... after much thinking and despairing about my recent weight gain AND the fact that I'm going on an awesome trip to Scotland in 2-1/2 months, I thought I'd better get on the ball and get a little bit more fit.

I've decided not to actually have "lose weight" as a goal, because that's just too easy to screw up and it's a bit ... um ... cliché. I decided instead to increase my endurance and stamina. Any weight loss along the way is icing on the cake. Of course, I also decided to re-join Weight Watchers, if only to help me focus my eating a bit more. I did WW for about a year+ about 2 years ago and lost 37 pounds. I've gained a portion of that back, so I'd like to be a bit more trim when I go on vacation.

Working out. Phew. It's not easy for someone like me, who hasn't used certain muscles in ... oh, let's just say forever. My workout starts with a 5-minute warm up on the elliptical machine. From there I move on to free weights, using a stability ball. My trainer checks my form and encourages me. After the weights, we do PNF stretching, which is a passive stretch. My trainer works my muscles and I provide a bit of resistance. The workout ends with me on the elliptical doing some cardio work. Ick Ick Ick. Since I'm just starting this regimen, my cardio is 10 minutes + a 5 minute cool-down. Next week I'll start on 15 minutes with a cool-down.

You know what's really gross about the workout? The sweating. I don't mind on my body as much as I mind all the sweat on my head. I don't recall sweating like that when I was younger. I honestly think I didn't sweat like this until I had pneumonia back in '95. After that, my head always sweats when it's get even the tiniest bit warm outside.

What I'm working on now is my attitude towards working out. I'm such a Negative Nelly and I need to improve my mindset. I'm working on that with my therapist. Good times. Good times.

Sleep, oh marvelous sleep

The thing about insomnia is that you can't sleep through it. Even though you feel tired, you just can't curl up in a warm bed and just let yourself float away. Lately, this happens more and more. I go to bed, read a bit and feel that little prick behind the eyes, telling me it's time to turn out the light. I snuggle under the covers, not moving my feet too much because I want to start to concentrate the warmth around them, and slowly fall asleep. All is well.

And then ... it happens. Something wakes me. It can be our doggie finding a new position to sleep in, it can be C. coming to bed, it can be a forgotten dream ... doesn't matter what, it wakes me. Most times I just turn over and fall back to sleep, but other times, like tonight (or should I say this morning?), I'm just wide-eyed. Not bushy-tailed, though.

I remember as a kid being able to sleep anywhere. Ah, what a joy that was! On my first airplane trip to Holland, at 10 years old, I just passed out and didn't worry about a kink in my neck or my leg falling asleep. Kids are so resilient. In college, I would always come home late and wake early ... the horrors of early morning and late night classes. Every few weeks, I'd sleep the day away, catching up from days and days of short nights. But that's what college kids do. You work hard, you sleep hard.

As a working adult in my 20s and 30s, I don't really recall any problems sleeping. There were also times of work hard/sleep hard ... I remember staying up till 4AM working at home, but I don't give that kind of dedication to my job anymore. The return on that investment is slight at best.

As I slowly (although it seems quite rapid at times) near my half-century mark, I experience more instances of insomnia. Maybe I need to see a doctor about it. It's certainly not good for me. I get too sleepy in the afternoon and that's usually when I'm driving home from work. Grrr ... as my mom used to say "It ain't easy, McGee!". Where the hell a Dutch woman picked that up is beyond me.

Sex

Lately ... wow! Simply wow!

'Nuff said ...

My love/hate relationship with the phone

When I was growing up and my sisters were all teenagers, my dad would time their phone calls. Especially my oldest sister, K. There was a 3-minute limit, timed using a small egg timer in the shape of an hourglass. K. would pace back and forth around the phone and talk-talk-talk-talk-talk. I don't ever recall my other sisters talking as much as K. did on that phone.By the time I was in high school, all my sisters were out of the house and the phone restrictions relaxed. I guess there were times that I spent hours on the phone, but nothing memorable comes to mind.

I moved out on my own when I was 24. Of course, that means you have your own phone. I just don't remember much about it. I know that when I moved to Northern California, I must have spent time on the phone with my mom, but really the only thing that comes to mind is that I would spend hours on the phone with my sister K and we would "shop" by watching QVC together. Weird, huh? In the meantime, my job was in "client services", which is a fancier way of saying customer service. It was before the days of email, so much of time every day was spent on the phone. I even had a headset so that I didn't have to cradle the handset against my shoulder and get a daily neck ache. I was on the phone for hours every day with clients, sales reps, vendors ... the list and the calls were never ending. I think that was the beginning of my dislike of the phone.

Nowadays, I rarely talk on the phone. I'd much rather "talk" via email. I can gather my thoughts, I can do it on my time and if my mind wanders ... which it does, frequently, when I'm on the phone ... no one knows. I have sort of ADD thing going on when I'm on the phone. I instantly multi-task. It's horrid, I know, and so unfair to the person on the other end of the call, but I can't seem to help it. Thus, I'd rather email. Sometimes I do try and call people, usually when I'm in the car (no worries, I use hands-free in the car), but I think I do that so that I have a definite ending to the call. When I get to my destination, it's over. But face it, I rarely call.

This is my communication hell, I think. I don't communicate well. I overshare on certain issues, but I rarely share on what goes on in my head and heart. Maybe I don't like to think about what goes on in my head too much. Hmmm ... I guess my therapist knows that, too. She pushes to get me to communicate better, but it's an uphill battle. Well, that's what I pay her for. Sometimes I think I'm really fucked up, but then I just tuck that thought away and go on. I don't like to do the introspection thing too much. Guess I'm afraid of what I'll find.

Hmmm ... from phone calls to therapy. Interesting segue.

Sick and Tired

It's been a while since I last posted an entry. I've been sick with the flu for the last two weeks. Dreadful. I haven't been this sick in a few years, so I guess it was my turn in the flu lottery ... what a winner. I'm just getting over the whole thing now, after having had fever, congestion, aches & pains, and finally that awful cough. I've coughed after being sick all my life. I think it started when I was about 5 or 6. I had a bronchial type of cough, the horrendous kind that makes you sound like you're hacking up a lung when you get a bad bout. I remember my dad waking me up in the middle of the night to place a cold, wet handkerchief around my neck. Home remedy, I guess. I think it seemed to work, but who knows? I don't wear one now. Now I try and medicate myself into oblivion when I cough. Codeine-laced cough syrup doesn't seem to do it for me anymore, though. *sigh* That's too bad. I didn't have a decent night's sleep for over two weeks this time, due to that damn cough. I even spent a few nights asleep in the recliner, so that I wasn't laying flat. Laying flat just exacerbates the coughing problem. I know .. boo hoo, poor me. Well, when you're sick you really only want to lay in your own bed, but that wasn't meant to be. Now I am back in my own bed and it's like a little slice of heaven.

Up Up and Away

I took my first plane ride when I was 10 years old. I got to fly to Holland for a 6 week vacation with my mom and my sister J. I. Was. Ecstatic. My mom told me that just as I was about to enter the plane, I turned to her and said "I'm going to fly on a plane!!" It was just the most magical thing. Back in those days, we'd fly charter flights from LA to Amsterdam. The charter airline was Martinair and schedules were fast and loose. You used to spend hours in the airport because of various delays. There were no movies on the flight, like today. You had to bring things on board to keep yourself entertained for the 12-13 hour flight. I have no idea what we brought on that flight, but I know that on other flights, we brought books, crosswords, even cross-stitch to while away the time.

I flew to Holland alone when I was 14. I had a boatload of suitcases on that trip. These were the days before you were really limited in what you could bring. I had 5 suitcases in descending size, and a carry-on. When I came back, I had 3 carry-ons, because I was taking home some presents for my parents. I was the last person through customs and the last person off the plane in LA. My parents thought that perhaps I'd missed the plane!

I've been to Europe and back a number of times now. The best flight was by far the time I got to fly business class. This was a business trip and the tab was footed by the company. Those days are now over, but I'm glad I got to experience it when I did. Large, reclining seats. TV in the armrest, watching unlimited movies. Nicer food, excellent drinks. Ah ... really lovely. The best thing was the FIFO (first in, first out) for business class travelers. My luggage was all marked "priority" so it was off the plane in no time. It's very cool to go from plane landing, through immigration and customs and through baggage claim in a total of about 30 minutes after a long trip. If only I could afford that now ...

I do love to fly ... not because sitting in a cramped seat is all the fabulous, but it means that somewhere, somehow, an adventure is starting ...

TV Age

I grew up on television. My dad loved to watch TV and I sat right next to him, devouring whatever was on the boob tube. As a little kid, I remember getting up at 6AM on a Saturday to watch cartoons. I'd get up and go into the den, closing the pocket door that led to the bedrooms, so that no one would hear me. I'd turn on the TV and sit maybe 1 foot from the screen, with the volume turned on really low and watch all sorts of cartoons. I have a vague sensation/memory that I liked Bugs Bunny cartoons the best. I guess I was snarky even at the tender age of 6!

It was rather a totalitarian regime in our house, with regard to who chose what to watch on TV. Well, not wholly, but I do remember being really upset that I couldn't watch The Partridge Family on a Friday night because my dad wanted to watch a boxing match. He won, I didn't.We also watched things like Mannix, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Police Woman, Hawaii 5-0 ... all shows he wanted to watch. It should come as no surprise to anyone that I now seem to gravitate more to police procedurals on TV; I grew up with that stuff!

During the 70's, I remember watching Happy Days, but not much else (unless it was a show my dad watched). I suppose I watched Laverne & Shirley. Oh wait ... Mary Tyler Moore and the Bob Newhart Show. That's right. The years when Saturday night television was the best night on TV. Love Boat, Fantasy Island, the original Saturday Night Live ... all the things you rehashed with your friends on Monday morning at school.

The 80's were all about sci-fi shows and things like the Cosby Show. I was (and still am) a huge Star Trek: The Next Generation fan. It was also the decade that saw the start of MTV. Man, that was some channel. It was AMAZING! You could see these awesome videos, see all the people who were singing the music you were wailing in the car ... it was really fantastic. Nothing saddens me more than seeing the MTV today being nothing more than a reality show channel with a hint of music. Well, those are the commercials I see. I have to be honest, I don't really listen to a lot of current music now and definitely have no desire to see videos of women shakin' their thang, if you know what I mean.

The 90's were interesting for me, TV-wise. I started going down the sci-fi road a lot, getting totally hooked on Babylon 5. I mean, so much so that I found friends online to discuss episodes, speculate where the story was going and so on. It was riveting. In the late 90's, when I lived in Belgium, I discovered Friends. I was so homesick for America that anything on Belgian TV from the US was welcome, but I fell in love with Monica, Rachel, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross. They were my link to my home, and after I moved back to California, I kept watching and now it's one of my favorite reruns on TV.

The turn of the century brings me to more police procedurals. Lots of CSI and Criminal Minds type stuff. Also some sci-fi/fantasy stuff like Supernatural and Doctor Who. I'm a big BBC fan, so I try and watch a lot of the BBC mysteries and sci-fi shows (although they've been lacking lately, by not showing much but that darn Gordon Ramsey).

TV was a balm to my childhood, comforting me when I came home from school and had a few hours to kill before my parents came home. In my high school years, it was something to distract me as I was doing homework. In college, it was a way to stay hip. As I ventured out to living on my own, it became a comfort again. Now living with C, it's a nice diversion from work. I'll always be a TV addict. Phew!

The Happiest Place

I love Disneyland. It's just such a departure from the daily rat race, so clean and so friendly. It's a real escape.

As a kid, my family would go to Disneyland about once a year. At that time, you still had to buy ticket books and "E" tickets are the high value ones, used at the best rides in the park. You also got a little book, detailing all the rides and which tickets they required. Since you only had maybe 5 "E" tickets, you had to choose carefully or else buy add'l tickets. I loved that little book. After we went home, I would read that book for days and days, reliving the rides and going over my memories of our day at Disneyland. Just wonderful.

Nowadays it's a "one price for the whole park" entrance fee, which makes things a lot easier, but somehow that "E" ticket magic makes me wistful.

Rides have changed over the years, as I'm sure most people know. Now they must be faster, higher, more thrilling. Before, it was more about the charm, I think. I remember the GE "Carousel of Progress". Man, I loved the ride. After all these years, I can still sing the song "It's a great big beautiful tomorrow". (Guess I'm officially a geek now. My amateur status is gone.) The old Skyway ride was fun, but my dad would never go on it. He was afraid of heights, so he would watch us board the little car in Tomorrowland and then we'd watch him jog through park to meet us at the other station in Fantasyland. I can still see him running in his little white tennis shorts.

We always used to eat our dinners at Carnation, which was at the end of Main Street as you see the entrances to Frontierland, Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. We'd have hamburgers and possible fries, but always ended with a HUGE ice cream cone, filled with delicious Carnation ice cream. The venue is still there, but it's not Carnation anymore. Too bad ... I loved those ice cream cones.

My mom used to love the Main Street Electrical Parade. Back in the day, that was just so spectacular! Lights lights everywhere, on floats, on costumes, on dresses, on tiaras. So much fun to watch. I wish they still had that parade.

C and I went down to Disneyland a few years ago. It was his first time and I hadn't been there in at least 5 years. We really had a fabulous time. We stayed at the Grand Californian hotel and spent 2 days at Disneyland and one day at California's Adventure, the other theme park owned by Disney. It was brilliant. We'd like to do it again or maybe even ... dare I say it? Go to Disneyworld in Florida. That would be some planning, though, to go when it's not humid. We both loathe humidity.

Fond memories, courtesy of Walt Disney and Co. Thanks!

Romancing the Stone

Back in the 80s, one of my very favorite movies was "Romancing the Stone". It was on one of the cable movie channels and thankfully, my parents had actually paid the add'l money on their cable bill to have a movie channel. I taped the movie ... yes, TAPE, we're talking VHS times here ... and watched it over and over. It's such a clever movie, snarky comments at the right moments, witty repartee, lovely romance ... it made me fall in love with romance over and over again. It's still on my Top 10 list of favorite flicks.

What's romance to me these days? Let me cast my vague memory back to various romantic things that have happened to me over the years. I remember a fleeting 2-week romance in Switzerland when I did my summer "work abroad" program back in 1982. J was an American I met who was at some fencing tournament or something in the same town I lived. We met at one of the local bars and really hit it off. His romantic move (in my mind) was to hold my face in hands, stare into my eyes and kiss me. Yep, my girlfriends and I called that the "J----" for years. Soft, sweet, romantic.

C does romance his way. Like bringing home some chocolate he saw at work and hiding it behind his back and making me close my eyes before giving it to me. Or cutting a flower from the rosebush outside, putting it in a small vase and placing it on my desk. When we first starting seeing each other, we were mad emailers. I still have every one of C's emails and when I'm in a mood, I read the ones from the beginning of our courtship and get all gushy inside. I love those emails. Since we're married now, we have less of that and on consideration, I think I actually miss that.

Since this is my blog and my feelings and my thoughts, here are some more things I think are romantic, even though they don't usually happen. Flowers. Cliché but oh, so wonderful. I love getting flowers, whether a small bouquet from the supermarket or a lovely arrangement delivered to my office. I think I'm going to tell C that for our first anniversary, I don't want a gift, just a recreation of my bridal bouquet in flower arrangement from the florist who did our wedding flowers. That's really all I want.

Snuggling. Don't let anyone tell you snuggling isn't romantic. Just sitting on the couch watching a movie with the lights out and snuggling. If the world snuggled more, I think we'd have less war and strife. I'm serious!

Kissing. Wow. A bad kisser is a deal-breaker. How lucky am I that C is a fantastic kisser? Very lucky. I've kissed bad kissers before and blech! what a downer. No tongue, too much tongue, too anxious, too reticent. Never the right amount of anything. Sure there've been some great kissers sprinkled throughout here and there, but I'm so glad that C is an "A-#1" kisser. I mean, that would have been difficult to overcome. I remember my sister telling me once "just discuss it with (Mr. X) and tell him you like to be kissed this way or that way". Right. Like that's not an awkward conversation. I mean, doesn't everyone feel like they're a good kisser? Who wants to be told "You suck and not in a good way?" Long, slow kisses that don't have to lead to anything, quick kisses to say "I love you", urgent kisses because you just want to ... they're all in the arsenal. No need to stockpile.

Holding hands in public. Yes, PDA. I think that's one of those "girl" things. It's our way of marking our territory, perhaps. I like to feel C's thumb rub over my hand. When I'm 60, 70 or 80, I still want to hold hands with C. That would make me happy.

Romance isn't dead in this world. I think it's just on a little vacation.

My First Mystery Novel

I remember the first mystery I ever read. It was a Nancy Drew book, "The Clue of the Dancing Puppet". I was hooked from that moment on. I don't remember how old I was, but I'm guessing about 9. Ever since then, I've been a voracious reader. Picky, but voracious. My favorite genres are mysteries and fantasy. I've read a few (very few) true crime novels and to be honest, they scare the crap outta me. I mean, I can read about gruesome murders all through my mystery novels, but when you read about a gruesome murder that really happened? Gives me the heebie jeebies for days on end.

From the moment I read that Nancy Drew, I had to read more. I collected Nancy Drew books until they stopped publishing the yellow-spined versions. It used to be that they only released a new ND book once a year and it was such an event for me. Nowadays, I'm guessing they pop those puppies out every month. It just haven't that same sense of anticipation that I had as a kid. I still have all my yellow backs, plus a goodly number of older versions of ND, maybe even a first edition or two. They were all rewritten in the 50s to be more "politically-correct" so reading the older versions is spectacular.

I don't like reading gruesome murder mysteries. For example, I stopped reading James Patterson books a while ago, because I think he got caught up in the distressing details of over-the-top murders. Not my thing. I like little cosy mysteries, such as Agatha Christie. Basically, I like my murders clean and tidy.

Fantasy books. I do like fantasy books. Not so much the "slay the dragon" books, but more the "farm boy is actually a prince" type of books. I also like HEA books. What's HEA, you ask? Happily Ever After. Deep down, I'm a sap. I don't want the books I run to as an escape from real life to emulate real life. I want the damn happy ending. (OK, OK ... not the massage happy ending, thankyouverymuch!) I just like the stories to resolve into a happy note, like a minor chord resolving into a beautiful warm major chord and trailing off in my memory.

Do you live in your books? I mean, do you think about them after you've finished them and start to relive those fictional events in your head? I do. As I said in a previous post, I feel like I don't have a lot of imagination so I live vicariously through others, and that's what I do when I relive these fictional events. I don't even put myself in the place of the heroine or anything. I just put the tape on replay and watch it all unfold in my head again. And then, when the tape gets fuzzy or broken, I read the book again, to revisit old friends and make a new copy of the tape. This is why I read some books over and over again. I'm not a "read it one time and I'll always remember whodunnit" person. On the contrary, I read books again and again because they give comfort by their familiarity, even if I know whodunnit. Some books are like a calorie-free dish of comforting mac'n'cheese.

The Diarist

I've never been a diary person. Never had one as a kid, and honestly, am pretty lazy about keeping one updated. When I was 20, though, my friend gave me a blank book to use as a diary for my 5 month sojourn in Europe. In 1982, I did a summer job exchange in Switzerland, working in a supermarket for a summer. After that, my best friend and I traveled through Europe on the college-student's-best-friend Eurailpass for 2 months. During that time, I wrote in my diary every day.

I kept it up for a while when I got back (if I recall) but never to the daily extent of that summer/fall of 1982.

After that European adventure, I went on a study abroad program in Germany. That was a year-long program and I thought I'd start a new diary. But ... when you live somewhere for a year, things start to become a little repetitive and you forget to write. That diary is not nearly as robust as my 1982 diary. I sort of regret that, 25 years later, but them's the breaks.

Periodically over the years I've started and stopped writing diaries. I am always sucked into the beauty of a small blank book at a bookstore, lovely leather cover or a beautiful picture cover, blank pages just waiting for me to divulge my most intimate secrets. I buy the book, hide it away in my purse for those free moments anywhere that I think I must write and ... nothing happens. The few times I do write, I find my entries shallow and uninteresting. I always feel that diary entries should be full of depth, true soul-searching and mine always seem ... mundane.

I read my last diary last night. Months and months pass between entries. Names I've forgotten pop up and I laugh at the childish things I write, even though I'm an adult. The beauty of this particular diary, though, is that I have a few entries from when I first met C. I even wrote down when he first told me he loved me. What a beautiful feeling that evoked, reading my words about that time again. I'm happy reading that entry, because after nearly 7 years, I realize none of those feelings have diminished, only strengthened.

This blog is a diary of sorts, easier to write than using pen to paper. I know that somewhere along the way I'll still be sucked into buying a beautiful new blank book and that it will lie barely used somewhere in my house, but at least I know that somewhere in my mind, I'll put pen to paper, whether literally or figuratively.

Career Counseled

When I was a kid, I never had dreams of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I somehow think I lack a bit in the imagination realm. I love to read fiction and fantasy, so I guess I live vicariously through other people's imaginations. In any case, this means that I never really dreamt of being an astronaut or a princess or a doctor or anything. So if you have no real dreams, how do you choose to become ... whatever you become as an adult?

When I was in college, I started out as an "international business" major. What IS that? I didn't know then and I still don't now. I think I liked the "international" in the name. In any case, I majorly messed up my statistics class and hated taking economics, so I dumped that major when I changed universities. (For the record, I started at the University of San Francisco and ended up at California State University, Northridge. Going to a state school is waaay cheaper than a private Catholic university.)

At CSUN, I started in as a math major. Yeah, I'm pretty good at math, like algebra and trigonometry. What I totally suck in is geometry. So the hardest class I took in college was Calculus, which is half algebra and half geometry. Pretentious students in my class would pipe up with the correct answers and when the teacher would ask how they got the answer, they'd say things like "well, that's obviously an isosceles triangle" (sounding in my memory like Thurston Howell III). Blech. Definitely not where my "skillz" were at. Thus a change in majors to Computer Science.

Now back in those days (we're talking the days just at the end of the punch card era and starting the [gasp!] dot matrix era) Comp Sci was mostly a male dominion. So I had lots of guy friends who could help me with my homework, because honestly? I'm not a programmer at heart. I could never see the illogical things I was writing when I wrote wee little programs. (I do realize now, though, that since I've been working with computers since the early '80s, I'm a damn good computer USER.) Comp Sci as a major lasted about ... two years, I think. Then I realized that I'm just not good enough to get a degree in this field. Too stressful trying to write programs.

What to do, what to do? ("Put some mustard in your shoe, drive a nail through your foot, fill your stocking full of soot" ... sorry, I digress. That was a little thing my sister taught me when I was a kid. OOOH! I just Googled this and it's a poem by Shel Silverstein!! I rock!) I looked at all the classes I was taking (many were general ed classes) and I discovered that I was pretty darn good at German. Now I took German because it's similar to Dutch (a language I grew up speaking) and I figured "easy A!". It kind of was, so I kept taking the classes. Finally, I just claimed German as my major and after 6 years in college (which included a summer stint working in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and a year of "study abroad" in Germany), I finally got my BA in German.

Uh ... now what? I briefly toyed with the idea of being a university professor, teaching German to willing little students. HA! I taught a "German for travelers" type of class for a place called the Learning Tree (one of those 8-week, adult interest classes) and I loathed it. One of my students even told me (via the end-of-class survey) that they wished they'd learned something. Nice. Thus, teaching was not for me.

The big question for me, and I guess a zillion other people in the world, is what do you after college? I mean, I had a degree that wasn't good for a lot of things, so how do I earn a living? In my case, you start out by signing up with a temp agency. I then got a receptionist job at a company, which lead to an executive secretary position with a printing company. I got this last job because I spoke German ... hot damn! I actually could put my college degree to a bit of use. The printing company was owned by a German conglomerate, and the president was a German who wrote lots o' letters "auf deutsch". This was actually a good move for me, as I was able to move out of being a secretary into a customer service position.

Over the years, customer service morphed into what people today call "project management" or "program management". Now I'm a program manager. Basically, I'm a super-duper anal retentoid who can organize the shit out of just about anything, and good program managers do exactly that. I admit that I'm very, very good at my job and people really like how I manage my work. I don't necessarily get along with everyone, but I know my stuff.

Organizing apparently comes naturally to me, because I organize all sorts of things at home, too. I pay our bills on a regular schedule, I keep receipts and shit like that, even the spices in my pantry are in alphabetical order. Sometimes being anal retentive is a curse, too. It means that I organize all our vacations, so it's never really a true "rest" for me, because I'm always wondering what the next thing is that I have to remember. I admit that kind of sucks, but at least I get to go on vacation. Lots of people end up staying at home when they take time off. Silver linings, people, silver linings.

I guess that education doesn't always prepare you for a particular job, at least it didn't for me. What it did prepare me for is routine work, understanding how I work (for example, I work better with a deadline than without ... still do so today!), knowing my strengths and weaknesses (like the fact that I work better early in the morning than any time in the afternoon) ... things that make sense to me now as I work at my "career".

The Family Dynamic

Not that we're a dynamic family, really. Just a little overview of my family. My parents emigrated from the Netherlands right before I was born. They traveled with 3 small children and one on the way on those torturous long flights of the '60s. Family stories say it took 12 hours to fly from Amsterdam to New York and then another 12 from New York to Los Angeles. Imagine that while you're 6 months pregnant and have 3 children under the age of 10 to herd. My dad was an older dad, being nearly 46 when I was born. My mother was 15 years younger, which has always amazed me. Not that she was younger but that at the young age of 21, she married a much older man. So ... my dad was 45 when I was born, he'd just moved to a country where the language spoken was not his native language, he had 4 daughters and a wife to support and he was ... not a spring chicken. Looking back, I think I would have crumpled under that strain. He just did it, though. After I was born, my mom went to work, too. And that was life during the '60s. Working and just surviving. My sisters say that my parents were so focused on keeping a roof over our heads and food on that table, that the important events of the era just passed them by. I think they were aware of the Vietnam War but only on the periphery. Working and keeping their heads above water was just so much more important.

I have 3 sisters, who are 10, 8 and 6 years older than me. Sometimes I've felt like an "oopsie" but I guess I'll never really know. Growing up I was just the "baby", but as adults we get along quite well. All my sisters live in different states, in different time zones. We communicate mostly by email, which is fine by me. I'm not much of a phone person anymore. I used to get on the phone with one of my sisters and talk for hours. Now if I have more than a 5 minute conversation with anyone on the phone, it's a miracle. Am I becoming more insular as time goes on? For all the impersonality of electronic communication, I like it better because it gives me an opportunity to reflect on the words I will use. The immediacy of phone conversations stresses me a little, and I think it gets worse as I get older. Phone conversations are probably something that needs to be practiced more often than once a month ... no wonder I always feel off kilter when I get on the phone. I don't practice.

Back to family, I have 8 nieces and nephews, one of whom was murdered when he 16. It's still weird to say this, even after 18 years. I have 6 great-nieces and great-nephews. My nephews were definitely more prolific than me, as I have no children of my own. Of course, I've never really wanted them so it's not like I'm jealous or anything. I'm not close with my n&n's ... I was never that "cool aunt" who did fun things with them. I guess that even back when they were kids, I realized I didn't have much of a maternal gene that wanted to do things with them. I'm not apologizing, just explaining. It's interesting that even in this day and age, you have to explain why you're "child-free" as opposed to "childless". I'm just not maternal, end of story.

My sisters have lots of marriages amongst them. Three sisters, 5 divorces and 8 marriages. It's really not a wonder that I didn't get married until my late 40s. I mean, it's not like there was a great track record in the family that made me want to emulate them at all, relationship-wise. I did mine on my own terms. C and I didn't meet until I was nearly 41. It was whirlwind and infinitely right, but it took me a long time to get to that point. Lots o' frogs done been kissed, I can tell ya.

My sisters and I try and get together once a year for a "sisters weekend", just trying to schedule time to actually connect. It's good for us to see each other and get caught up, because no matter what, email does not cover all aspects of life.

That's the whole family, minus the aunts, uncles and cousins back in the Netherlands. Nothing earth-shattering, but something very comfortable.