see as i saw

I didn't quite push my way into the throngs of people drinking out of boots and noshing on bratwurst, but I edged along the outskirts of the Christkindlmarket.  It was only an extra block beyond my bus stop and it seemed like a good, albeit short, diversion before finding myself in the usual evening situation.  Couch and pajamas.

Despite the fact that I work with three (occasionally four) men, they are all married men...each with a child under two years old.  Therefore, things flow pretty seamlessly between frat house humor and stroller chat.  I suppose there was only a trace amount of surprise when it was suggested that we have a cookie exchange on Monday.

So I have a weekend mission.  It involves at least a trip to the grocery story and an hour or so in the kitchen.  Let's hope I can match the domestic skills of my married male compatriots and arrive on Monday with a worthy batch of snickerdoodles.

I'm reading a book that I don't particularly enjoy.  It's all in the name of accomplishing that Randomhouse list of best books, which has taught me that everyone has a different definition of "best".  Looking on the bright side though, the book did bring me one phrase that piqued my analytical mind.

"...she smiled, thinking how many shapes one person might wear..."

On a day where I wanted to do nothing more than come home and make zero effort at anything, I started thinking about the shapes that I wear.  They're all me at the end of the day.  (I'm less than adept at things involving lying and faking.)  But what I'm learning as I get older is that "me" is not a single point on a grid.  It's more of an arc that lives in a certain quadrant of that grid.

We all learn how to stretch or censor our personalities depending on the people and occasions.  It's not natural for me to network in large groups of people I don't know, but I've learned how to fit who I am into that situation and do it my way.  Sometimes I'm exhausted and have a penchant to enmesh myself in silence, but I wouldn't imagine leaving work at 2:00pm and refuse to talk to people.

And if you have ever managed to catch me in a state of sheer joy, you've witnessed one of the extremes in that arc known as "me".  Giddy isn't a shape that I often wear, but I smile knowing that I possess it in my repertoire.

Some days are just off-kilter.  From nearly the beginning, this was one of those days.  An off-kilter day isn't the same as a disastrous one, where you can immediately pinpoint a catalyst.  For me, it starts with an underlying disjointed feeling, then slowly crescendos throughout the day.  Suddenly you're anxious, impatient and erupting without really understanding why.

And today I found that this juncture is where yoga is my friend.  For most of the session, my mind is working so hard to convince my body to be malleable that I don't have time to be caught up in the nitty gritty details of my day.  Today offered up a rather fitting mental exercise as well.

As we began class, focusing our minds and bodies, the instructor asked us to assign ourselves a mantra, completing the phrase "I am..."  Quickly cataloging my day, and maybe even a macro level of my life, I struck upon the realization that most of my tension was caused by my reactions to other peoples actions.

So my mantra became, "I am in control of my reactions".  There's not much I can do about what others say or do; my only power comes in the form of how I handle what happens around me or to me.  It's my choice to be upset or calm, the build something up or let it lie.

In an ideal world, this single yoga class would magically evaporate any future tension caused by reactions and expectations.  As a realist, I know that I'm bound to fail at it again...and again.  But I have to imagine that being cognizant, and reminding myself, that I'm in control will ultimately help.  Maybe it'll make me stop, think, breathe - thirty seconds of stepping outside the issue can deter escalation.

I mean, I could be all wrong.  I'm not a psychologist or anything.  My only other explanation, though, is that I forgot my earbuds this morning.  It was a rough deficit for the day, so there's a possibility that it threw everything out of equilibrium.

Sometimes there isn't much on my mind, believe it or not.  Today is one of those days.  I made it as far as the entry way after work, put on my pajamas, and settled into the couch.  Despite the voices in my head telling me to work out or work on something, I lounged, chilled, vegetated, whatever verb you'd like to use.

My greatest use of contemplative energy was how to use the five days of paid time off that I have this year, when I'm not going anywhere.  We have to supply our requests so that the managers can ensure coverage during the holidays.  So maybe I'll take off December 26 and a few random Fridays.  I'm horrible at using time off if I don't have plans to leave the country; next year's days are already numbered and accounted for.

So I guess I'll end on this note.  Today I'm thankful for the abundance in my life that I often take for granted.  Such as the fact that having more vacation days than I do plans is a problem.  Or that my company is funding lunches for the entire company from Monday through Thursday during the fourth quarter, so that we can remain focused.

The days are getting shorter and I'm spending most of the daylight hours in an office.  Therefore, photos have a tendency to fall into sunrise, dusk, or dark these days.  Today brings you an ominous reminder of how things look in the impending month of November, generally my least favorite of the year.  It's the month where the Midwest proves to me that sunny and 70 really is a pipe dream.

To offset the dreariness, I always have to keep my eye on a prize.  Prize = travel.  I think I've figured out how to use some well-played Monday holidays and squeeze three trips into one year.  So I guess I have my eye on three prizes.  Good thing I'm an excellent multi-tasker.

In the doldrums of winter, early 2013, it'll be time for some much needed maxin' and relaxin' during a long, sunny Puerto Rican weekend....and maybe just a dash of off the beaten path adventure thrown in.  September has long been earmarked for Croatia, a solid nine or ten day traipsing about the country.  And since I have my heart set on Ecuador, I finagled a spot for it during a week including Memorial Day.  There's nothing tentative about these plans, I'm committed.

If I can manage to fit in all of those plans and still save money, I'm thinking that it's time to start a fund for eventual property ownership in Central or South America.  For some reason, I feel more motivated to make an investment of the getaway caliber than buy a home in the U.S.  Maybe I watched too many episodes of House Hunters International.

A disclaimer for the next 72 hours: I cannot promise the timeliness nor quality of blog posts.  My life is reaching the apex of it's recent rat race pace.

After an hour and a half nap, I am soon heading to Midway on a midnight airport pick-up run.  From there, I head directly with my human cargo to the homeland - Grand Rapids.  I'm hoping to sleep from approximately 4:00 to 7:00 a.m., at which point I will have to rise (and doubtfully shine).

Throwing a quick shower in the mix, I'll be back on the road.  Next destination: Novi.  There I'll spend the majority of the day working from an adopted home with my former partner in workday crime.  A working reunion of sorts.

Throw in some hair-doing and getting dressed, somehow 3:30 p.m. will roll around all too quickly, and it'll be time to hit the road again.  On to Howell, where wedding bells are tolling.  The party is bound to roll into some wee hours, hopefully I won't be asleep on my feet at some point.  If only there was the post-reception promise of rest for the weary.

Instead, the plan is family tailgate time for the Spartan homecoming game.  Since that's a noon kick-off, call time for pre-game festivities is about 8:00 a.m.  So I'll be back to doing what I know best by no later than 7:30 a.m. - driving.  Tailgate.  Watch football.  Drive back to Grand Rapids.

From there I should have a full 24-hour hiatus on getting behind the wheel (please and thank you).  I'm trying not to hold out hope for a full nine-hour sleep, too.  Alas, Sunday afternoon will find me back on chauffer duty.  I'll wistfully pass my exit and make the drop at O'Hare, then make an about face and head directly home.

And any other day, by that point, I would drop helplessly into my bed and only rise when the alarm tolled for work the next morning.  But October 14th happens to be the premiere of The Walking Dead and, therefore, the revival of zombie Sundays.  Since my brain is likely to be in a zombie-like state by that point, it's fitting to push myself through the night.

I'm tired already.  And it's just getting started.  Oy.

On the three occasions that I was outside in the Loop today, I became convinced that the Chicago business community either didn't check the weather forecast or they're in denial.  I suppose there was a third category, consisting of people like myself, who were simply unenthused by the sub-fifty degree weather.

Sometimes awareness brings us clarity, lends a solution, or aids in decision-making.  But often awareness just makes us anxious, paranoid, and needlessly focused on things we can't really control.

I think that's why I have an issue with watching the local news.  It only took thirty seconds tonight for me to hear that a Chicago firefighter died of West Nile virus and that meningitis is breaking out in Indiana.  My first thought was, "Thankfully I have health insurance again" (eight months without it, now that's a fun exercise in anxiety).  Then I started to worry a little, thinking about how close to home a freak tragedy, accident or illness can be.

So what's the solution to that?  Stop living my life?  Become a recluse?  Give up the outdoors because I'm afraid of running into an infected mosquito or other contagious humans?

On other days, living in the city and hearing what goes down, the worry has extended to being mugged, shot or getting my car stolen.  Oh, and we haven't even broached how secretly sinister people can be while coming off as well-adjusted members of society.  Which is fine, you get the point (and hopefully I haven't sent you into a spiral of paranoia).

I'm all for erring on the side of caution and analysis in life, but there comes a point where you're better off not looking too closely.  I like vacationing in equatorial countries with rain forests, so I wear bug spray and drink bottled water if I must.  Short of an impenetrable force field, I'm pretty sure that's all I can do short of restricting myself from doing things I love.

What I'm learning at my new job: clients renew monthly and quarterly.  This week was the end of a month and a quarter.  That makes my life insanely busy.  So, I have to bring a little work home with me this weekend.  Once I get over the hump in the learning curve, I'm thinking that will be less likely.

This was also supposed to be my one low-key, do nothing weekend after three weeks of traveling and before three more of the same.  Well, that changed when I made an impromptu road trip to Michigan after work.  The opportunity cost of trading in my chill at home weekend is completely worth it though.  You'll get the picture tomorrow, literally and figuratively.

The drive into Michigan wasn't quite as bad as I expected after last weekend's traffic jams and rain storms.  To further entertain myself, I whipped out the archaic CD case from my trunk and played a little soundtrack roulette.  It's a simple game whereby I flip blindly to a page, pull out a CD without looking, and insert it into the CD player.

I ended up with Celine Dion's Greatest Hits (I beg to differ with the titling; I didn't know at least half of the songs).  It's probably a good thing no one else was present for that singalong session.  Then I segued to a burned CD of country hits circa 2002.  That one didn't end up back in the archives, it'll stay in my rotation.

Something about coming to, being in, and leaving Michigan just puts me in country music mode.  It's like I go full rural once I get here.

Some things that are constantly reinforced in my life: surprises are lurking everywhere and the past seems incapable of staying history.  I'm purposely going to leave this declaration in a relatively enigmatic state.  I swear that I make an effort to live a relatively unassuming and non-dramatic life, but it's worth noting that this diminishes none of the aforementioned enigmas.

In other news, my morning commute took an hour today.  One culprit was a little friendly morning road work on a main thoroughfare, and confused drivers with limited mental capabilities for understanding the concept of merging.

But in a freakier twist of events, a standing passenger fainted in the bus aisle and we spent fifteen minutes awaiting medical attention.  She regained consciousness quickly and, besides being a little disoriented and woozy, seemed like she'd be fine.  What struck me about the whole event was how quickly and automatically the passengers immediately surrounding her snapped to action.

One girl noticed the glazed look in her eyes and started to support her before she was even in full faint.  Another girl bore the body weight from the other side, while a guy moved her feet from under her to get her into a seated position on the floor.  As she started coming to, a guy was already on the phone with 911 and an unopened bottle of water was summoned forth.  As the minutes passed waiting for the medics, she was offered a seat, some granola, and a general outpouring of concern.

Although 90% of the passengers quickly removed themselves from the bus as soon as they realized we were stopping, there was a core who was more concerned about the well-being of a human being that getting to work by 9:00.  The girl sitting behind me even started her conference call from her cell phone on the bus.  And I bet no one on the other end had scathing retorts when she explained why.

I felt reassured about humanity this morning.  About my generation.  A small group of 20-somethings sprang to immediate action.  There was no by-stander effect.  And there was genuine compassion.  Kudos to all of those class-act individuals.  I'm proud to have shared a morning commute with you.

Honestly, it's getting more difficult to come up with something to say every day.  I didn't realize how much bandwidth my brain had for extra-curricular thinking when it was unemployed.  In the past three weeks, my social media access has dwindled and my visits to Pinterest have clocked in at zero.  I'm still managing to read books every day, but articles and blogs have fallen by the wayside.

Maybe it's just a readjustment period, since my information intake is so great every day I don't have the capacity to take on outside pondering.  So far I haven't even managed to get 50% caught up with my DVR.  And it looks like I'll be spending three of the next four weekends traveling, again.  How did I possibly develop such a busy life after eight months of going with the flow?

It's funny though, I've been through enough life changes to realize that a few months from now, everything that's pushing and pulling me now will come to feel like routine.  Despite how different my new office life is different from my unemployed life, or even my old office life, it'll start to feel like I've never been anywhere else.

Is it unusual to have a love/hate relationship with surprises?  When someone utters the phrase "I have a surprise for you", my mind is torn into two reactions.  At my core, I automatically begin worrying that I'll dislike or remain neutral to the surprise.  Since I'm virtually incapable of feigning excitement (a.k.a. lying), I'll end up inadvertently offending the surprise giver.  So before I've even experienced the surprise, I'm preparing how to make amends for my potentially offensive reaction.

Battling with that thought is a penchant to hold out a slender hope that the surprise will be amazing.  My mind starts to run away with possibilities, but my pragmatism always wins out, scratching each idea nearly immediately.  This leaves me with a vague sense of hoping for the best, but planning to be underwhelmed.  Maybe that's my personal mechanism of "under promise, over deliver".

There is a third point on the surprise continuum: the absolute surprise.  The kind that isn't promoted or hinted at beforehand.  It nixes the hang time that allows overanalysis, so the reactions will be truly genuine responses to the unexpected.  Of course, when you're known to process before reacting and are capable of being non-emotive, you still face a potential need to diffuse the situation.

Surprises are stressful.  They just happen to be a little less stressful when you don't preface them.  Yet somehow I'm still in favor of being surprised.  I do have a tendency to smell surprise in the air though, so I'm still waiting on an absolute surprise in my life.

Don't worry if you're confused.  I just wrote all of that and I'm still unsure of my own verdict on surprises.

First day in the Chicago office and this is where it begins to feel like I work for a start-up.  Three guys, a girl, and a mini fridge.  Before I even had my computer open, I was rallying to get a Keurig.  That request has been made to the powers that be (although I'm not entirely sure who "they" are).

An hour after my arrival, I was waiting on keys to both the office and the women's restroom.  It's a tenuous wait realizing that, should nature call, your best options are to hope another woman is heading in that direction (keep in mind that I only work with men) or heading down the block to Cosi.

In what was possibly a modern day miracle, by lunch time I had keys, a shelf and a wall installed at my desk, and had accomplished some real work.  Granted, a shipping error meant that I was still missing a monitor, keyboard and mouse, but there was Fresca in the fridge as a reparation.

I may have returned to the working world, but it feels nothing like the office routine that I've cycled through in the past.  And that seems to be a good thing.  It's only been one day in my new Chicago digs, but instead of heading for a rut it feels like I'm getting into a groove.  There's somehow both a minor and a distinct difference between the two.

Today seemed to have a theme: friends and pools.  And that combination proved to be precisely what was needed to quell an anxious mind.

Lunchtime by the pool with a newer friend proved to be a valuable mixture of grilled food (a personal favorite), time in the sun, and eye-opening stories about life travails and triumphs.  My curiosity about someone else's life was a great way to divert attention from my own for a few hours.

Then dinnertime rolled into the after hours with a tried and true group of girls.  Nighttime by the pool, with the addition of the city skyline and a bottle of vino drank from red Solo cups, made for another set of mentally recuperative hours.

Even when there are things in life that get you down, it's good to know that there are people surrounding you that can help you feel lifted up.  And that's what 2012 has been about for me, recognizing the true value in life and ensuring that I prioritize and appreciate it.

Disappointment is a tricky state of mind.  You have to be careful not to let it leach into other facets of your life or to taint the progression of the arena where it occurs.  As difficult as it is to view disappointment objectively, it seems to be the best approach for curtailing the possible negative aftermath.

When a situation doesn't live up to expectations, a palpable sense of disappointment can reveal how much it mattered to you.  By asking myself not only if I'm disappointed, but why, I learn a lot about the direction and intensity of my feelings.

As soon as I've let myself experience and assess disappointment, though, I attempt to move past it.  Wallowing won't make it better.  So I assume that it either occurred to create a path for something better or I merely accept that it happened and shift my focus to next steps.

Maybe it's a coping mechanism.  Perhaps it's the reason that people tend to bestow upon me the "grace under pressure" moniker.  I suppose I would rather just recognize and address my disappointment than let it own me.  Despite all of this, I still feel it, sometimes rather acutely.