Case of the Nows

I was walking up some stairs today, hurrying to my destination, when I suddenly felt a bit sorry for all the stairs in the world. How often are people fully present and experiencing the moment when they're on stairs? It got me to thinking that maybe there are some locations with a strong presence, at which most people passing through are fully living in the moment, and other locations with low presence. Here's a list of places and activities in which I experience consistently high or low awareness:

High:
Forest trails
Climbing & sitting in a tree
Holding a baby
Roller coaster rides
Eating creme brulee
Meeting someone I find fascinating right off the bat
Kissing
Crying
Migraines
During hurricanes, earthquakes, snow storms
The first few minutes after I get home from work
Massages
Medical procedures
Yoga
Digging a hole in the sand
Petting The Sneak

Low:
Stairs
Queues
(And waiting in general)
The first 10 minutes after entering a party full of strangers
(And stressful situations in general)
Areas near my job
At my job
Reading
TV/Movies
Airplane rides
Unenjoyable housework (bathrooms, heavy lifting)
Cardio workouts
Planning a blog entry

Plant Love

I remember the first time I came across the flower gardens & observatory in Golden Gate National Park. It was shortly after I moved into my first SF apartment on Haight St. Back then I felt horrible most of the time, mostly due to moving to SF and immediately getting my heart broken, and not knowing what to do with my life, and temping in call centers, and wishing every day was like burningman. I decided to walk over to Golden Gate park and see what that giant green area on the map is all about. Suddenly the sun came out, love was in the air, and flowers surrounded me. I can't decide whether the sun just decided to come out the moment I hit the gardens, or whether being in that place makes you notice the ambient sunlight more, but it snapped me out of my pity and took me to candyland.

The gardens always take me unexpectedly. It's like you can't experience the gardens unless you don't plan for them. I've been feeling low lately, due to a combo of crap diet and the job thing, and the weekend was difficult for me. I spent a lot of time with F's family and attended his cousin's wedding, struggling to socialize the whole time. It was a relief to be home alone for 3 hours yesterday, saved me from lacklusterly punching someone in the face. So, this morning I ate some more crap, and went to work to stare off into space for 4 hours. I didn't feel like eating when lunchtime rolled around, because of the dreaded candycorn tummy ache and general lack of vitality, so I forced myself to go on a walk. Eventually the gardens found me, the sun came out, and puppies had long friendly conversations. I kinda stopped at the top of the steps slack-jawed, because once again I had forgotten about that place, but it hadn't forgotten about me.

Thanks, flowers.

I'm sad that David Foster Wallace killed himself. Infinite Jest was an important book for me in college. Maybe I'm connected to him more strongly than I thought, and that's part of why I've been so down lately.

At least things with F are rockin. When I was younger I always imagined myself excelling career-wise, but being a virgin until 30 or at least generally sucking at relationships. It's funny how things turned out. I'm becoming a really awesome person to date, but am laughably lame at getting a job, or aspiring for a greater career.

Orange Triangles Sustain Local Girl for 30 Hours in Devastating Accident

I bought a bag of candy corn today. Damn those things are disgusting. So sweet they make me cough, ah, I love them.

So I guess we've officially entered the marketing zone around Halloween then? They had other Halloween crap out at the supermarket. I never knew stuffed spiders could be so cute.

I always imagine a yearly calender is divided into zones. Each holiday marketing zone perfectly butts up against the next. Inside those zones are the holiday season zones where, say half the populations feels the holiday spirit, or agrees it's the holiday season. And within those zones are the actual holidays, or course. Here's a yearly schedule:
A= marketing zone
B= general holiday season aka excuse to eat junk and slack off
C= actual holiday
D= token day off

<A1 <B1 <C1> /B1> /A1> D <A2 <B2 <C2> /B2> /A2>

Actually I feel pretty good today, candy corn coma aside. Burn After Reading is out this weekend, the first movie release in a long time that I believe I am more excited about than Francisco. You are probably like, Is That Even Possible? I know, me too!

So yeah, the job thing sucks but I don't care at the moment. It's boring to think about. I've been reading lots of good science, philosophy, and political articles recently, and it's hard to pay attention to something so boring as job applications when so much awesome stuff is happening and being thought about in the world right now. I'm sure my period will bring renewed angst, but until then, suck it hotjobs/recruiters/jaded office managers.

Painererer

I ache today. Not from yoga last night. That was awesome. I'm on a free week of yoga, and my body feels really good. But my heart aches. Every job rejection chips another piece off. People tell me I'm great, that they like me, that they're excited by my passion, my goals, my education. And then....nothing. It's really hard for me to keep going (with the job search, not my life). I find myself thinking that maybe I need to go through this in order to really value what I do, to not take anything for granted. But, since I don't believe in destiny or god lessons, that's probably something my nicer mind has made up to make me feel better. Aw. She's nice. She wants me to feel good, to be inspired, to think I'm great.

I'm having a hard time writing this, it's too painful. Guess I'll just keep plodding away. I can't talk to my mom right now, it'll make me start crying. When I feel good, she's great, and when I have a problem, she helps, but when it's a wall like this, I can't handle her. She gives me a lot of "what-ifs," but I don't want to contemplate them. She tells me I'm great and will do amazing things, but that won't penetrate right now, and might even make me pissed off about this "unfair" situation. I just want to feel sad for a while and not have to make any decisions.

I walked and walked during lunch today. Actually it was before lunch. The fire alarm went off and I walked out of the building and kept on walking until I hit Trader Joe's. I came back just in time for a meeting I had forgotten about. I forgot to eat lunch until now. I feel out of it and sad. I'll probably lose weight this week, cancel plans, and not be able to smell. My friends and family are alive and well, so it's pretty ridiculous that I'm acting like somebody died.

I did think of something good today though. Usually I envy people who have already gotten their higher degrees and are able to do their dream jobs, but today I remembered that they are done with school, and that I am not. I love school, and I get to do it again. If it wasn't financially reckless I'd take my time to finish. I can't wait to be a student again. Someday.....

Everytime someone from my Long Island past joins the McCain/Palin support groups on Facebook, it twists my heart a little more.

Pain Ratio
1 Job rejection =
3 discoveries of Palinites =
3 hugs, a yoga class, 2 cats & 5 Joe laughs to repair

Doors and windows

Apparently these people are related to me. I just had a nice amusing conversation with Grandma (who has always declared she has no living relative other than us). She googled her family name and found this website, then wrote to the Admin who said she had specifically put the site up 5-odd years ago to find my grandma. Fascinating!

In other news, I went on the most exciting job interview today. It's at this hearing aid fitting practice. The guy who runs it used to be a professor at UCSF in biophysics/neuroscience, and runs his practice like a research lab. Most audiologists are salesmen in white coats, with minimal training in audition theory, but this place is so incredibly different. It's not all about sales, as some of my other interviews have been, because they're not fighting to convince anyone. Customers come by word of mouth. He can't even sell new model hearing aids, because they are no longer designed to have complex fiddle-factor (ever since he published a certain research paper a few years ago, which scared off many manufacturers from providing this ability), so he buys an old model and redesigns it to custom fit each patient. I am so incredibly excited right now. So what if it's in Walnut Creek? This is a field with enormous potential, and I would be losing out if I didn't jump in. I think they appreciated my enthusiasm and educational background, so here's hoping!

I know it's you!

Holy crap, that applied kinesiology place is hiring yet again. I met the lady who was the previous office manager, she was really nice. I wonder whether she quit because Sarah the chiropractor is crazy, or whether she got fired along with everyone else that's tried to work there this year. She'd only been employed for a few weeks when I met her.

Google reader is awesome, it's allowing me to stalk clinics in the bay area. I'm like an internet detective or something.