Ah, new life. I wish I could have given myself a bit more time between the old job and the new. I suppose now I can start studying for the LSAT again. I am giving myself permission to go buy a car stereo this weekend, a luxury I have never had. I suppose to some people it is unimaginatble that I have never had a separately purchased car stereo. I wish I was buying a car instead ;) But a stereo will do.

Phoebe is learning to roll over. Thus far, she rolls from her back to her side. Odd, how it started so suddenly. She showed no inclination to do anything other than lay on her back. Then the other night I put her on her play mat next to a mirror and a second later she was on her side holding onto the mirror with hands AND feet. Ok. So little things amuse first time moms. I hope that I don't loose this joy of small steps if I have a second child.

My back is hurt again. I have never hurt myself so often as I have since having Phoebe. Just lifting her in and out of car seats and other objects, it seems I constantly tweak it. I'm walking around looking half crippled. Sad thing is I don't even know what drugs to take to help it since I've never had it injured beyond asprin (well, except for that time climbing Mt. Whitney, but I never went to a doctor then either).

  ¶ 8:43 AM 0 comments

  Today is the last day of my old job. I received the offer on my new job Monday. It was awkward--waiting for the official word of my new job before I could quit. The amusing thing was (and reinforcing of my decision), when I finally handed B my resignation, I didn't hear from him for a couple hours so I went in to talk to him. We talked for ten min or so about my new job, then he asked when I was leaving FA. Huh?? I told him it was in my resignation letter. What letter? he said. Ugh! He hadn't looked at it, just threw it in his drawer asuming it wasn't something important. I suppose that just reinforces how unimportant I am to him! And even more amusing that he could manage a 10 min conversation having no idea what I was talking about.

I am so relieved to be done with it. I have to admit though, like many things I've worried about in the past, the last week wasn't really all that bad. My husband always tell me the surest way to make something happen right is for me to worry about it, because nothing I ever worry about happens.

Last night a pre-season football game was on. Just sitting there, listening to the broadcast brought up such strong connections--I could feel the sensation of dozing off to sleep to the sound of the anouncers voice, rain pattering on the window. I could feel the emotions of cold winter days. Drums would sound in the background and it brought me back to high school football games, the band playing, my breathe white in the winter air, running around trying to track down the boys we had crushes on. Odd, how the human mind can make those connections watching a late summer game.  ¶ 7:02 AM 0 comments

  8/13/03

The internet connection isn't working this morning. Odd, how you get used to a particular routine and it is so galling to have that routine broken. My whole life is about to be shaken up--changing jobs. I suppose, having just had a child, that should be the smallest of life changes, but it seems momentous. This last week of work is horrible and not bad at the same time. I hate having to be there, but at least my supervisors appear to have decided to let me go without confrontation. One thing I must say for this company is that they take people leaving well. No, huge ordeal and guards to watch you pack. No letters admonishing you that computer files are company property, warning you what you can and can not reveal about company secrets. I was so sad last night though. To have worked with people for almost 4 years and to have some of them act so completely uncaring is incredibly sad. All the peer staff is sad, of course. The senior management are silent. K was so supportive about my pregnancy and morning sickness. She's always been someone I can let my emotions out with a bit...when my sister died, when I'm just so tired and stressed out by work. To receive this silence now feels like a little betrayal. It is so difficult to not mix up business with friendship. You want to treat your co-workers like family, but at some level you can not allow it. At the same time, human nature makes those connections whether you like it or not. It feels like a betrayal to not be treated fairly by people you care about.

At the same time, part of me is feeling like this is entirely my failure. At some levels, I have to admit that I screwed up. Yes, B is a jerk and a horrible manager. Yes, the way they approached this problem is ludicrous. But what about the times that I wasn't the most attentive to projects? Could I have prevented this by biting off less when I knew I was pregnant? The excuses come readily...but they said they only required 40 hours a week, they allowed our backlog to get so incredibly crazy that no human could keep up with it, B wasn't doing anything to help and was sloughing off his work onto me, he was pulling my staff off projects right and left and I was even writing everything myself, the stuff I'm in trouble for happened over a year ago. Ok. so actually my reminding myself of my excuses actually is making me remember that this isn't all my own doing :) Anyway. The bottom line is what is done is done and all that remains is the future. I can make my future go anyway I want it to go. Clean slate. Hell, I've even choosen a company that basically ensures I don't even have to take any old clients with me.

But honestly, at some level I know that work is NOT the most important thing in my life and really, I don't want it to be. I look at Phoebe and G and think that they are the most important thing. Everything thing else is nothing. But at the same time, I think of the Buddhist tenet: right work. I should read about that again because its always bugged me. Right work--your work in life should be meaningful and good. I question that what I do is sometimes just make money and selling my soul to do so. I think that is one reason that I want to become a lawyer--because I can pick my battles when I start my career again. I think my new job will be good for me too--they work less for developers and more for cities and counties.

I keep drifting away from what I wanted to talk about. I know that I have a lot of talent. I'm bright. I can do most anything I set my mind to. But part of me is also pretty damn lazy. I get bored at work, I goof off. I've never really liked that about myself. But you know, it is me. I am not perfect. I have my limitations and drawbacks. And maybe that isn't a bad thing to admit. Maybe if I accept that about myself, it won't be so hard to avoid the fallout from that. Think about school--I got great grades in the hardest classes and poor grades in easy classes. I love challenge. I don't want to work overly hard, but I love challenge :0 That's a huge part of the reason law school became so appealing recently. I was incredibly bored with FA. The work part was the same thing over and over and the personnel issues were ludicrous. Who the hell cares to talk about how much of an idiot John is over and over when you have an absolutely precious baby at home. The idea of learning a whole new subject and increasing my knowledge, opening up new advenues was overwhelmingly appealing.

My new job will tie right into that. I have to learn a whole new skill set and just when I start getting comfortable with that, I'll be going into law school.

Can you tell I'm trying to convince myself? I'm dreading the commute. I have to get a new car. There is nothing else for it. I'm not driving in a vehicle that could breakdown anytime and is uncomfortable to boot. A commute could be nice--start listening to audio books or something. Meditate while driving. LOL. I know, it'll suck. But the job should offset it.

God, I'm going to miss the extra time with Phoebe though.


  ¶ 6:53 AM 0 comments

  Today looks to be an anxious day. Tim didn't call yesterday, the owner of my 'new company', so I don't officially have a new offer. I want to quit Mon AM! I'm such a case about waiting for certain things. Once I've made a decision, its made and I want to implement everything immediately. Cindy said that he'd call with an offer this weekend, but we were going round about whether he should call, or write a written offer. Perhaps there was some confusion.

I really don't want to give a full two weeks. Since they cut my salary, I think one week is sufficient, don't you?

+++++

I made sushi last night for the first time. I told my husband that if I had ordered that sushi in a restaurant, I'd be very mad! But I certainly enjoyed making and eating it. Sushi isn't something you make perfectly the first time. I had to laugh, because it is such a Japanesse food--it just reeks of zen. You could spend a lifetime making sushi as meditation and still have more to learn. Startling color combinations and beauty. And it is so ephemeral.

I forgot to buy avocado, so my sushi was made of cucumbers (english), carrots, and oyster mushrooms (both sauteed and raw). For G, I made some without mushrooms. The main problem with my sushi was that there didn't seem to be enough in the middle--too unbalanced. I wasn't very keen on the nori (the seaweed wrap) that I bought either. It was a bit thick.

I am freaking out that Phoebe is sensitive to wasabi though. She never reacts to anything that I eat, so I didn't think twice about eating wasabi at dinner on Friday night with the girls. Yesterday, she pooped 7 times--compared to her normal every other day or so schedule, that's bad. Poor thing got all red. I'm hoping it wasn't the wasabi because I ate even more yesterday with my sushi, not having made the connection yet.

++++

Pema mentions in her third lecture (in The Wisdom of No Escape) one of Buddha's discourses on the four kinds of horses: the excellent horse, the good horse, the poor horse, and the really bad horse. The excellent horse moves before the whip even touches its back, the good horse runs at the lightest touch of the whip. the poor horse doesn't go until it feels pain, and the very bad horse doesn't budge until the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones. Pema comments that practice isn't about being the best horse or the good horse or the poor horse or the worst horse. " It's about finding our own true nature and speaking from that, acting from that."

I've often thought that I am a very lucky person in a way that my mother died when I was young and my sister died young. Not because this made me happy, but because it was and is the saddest thing imaginable. Learning to cope with pain and loss and finding the good in life to go on with---it is its own blessing. Death is the place that I come from. It is where my life started anew. I think about the comment that the bad horse doesn't budge until the pain penetrates to the marrow of is bones and I think, "that's me." Without black there is no white. Without pain, happiness is pale. I think that I appreciate things so much more because I know how precious they really are.  ¶ 7:47 AM 0 comments