The Single Rider

It’s a little extreme and a little too inclusive of gratuitous sexual references – especially the ending, which is neither here nor there with regard to the Law of Attraction.

However, as stumbling across the interwebz goes, it’s a definite “memo from the universe”. You can have what you imagine! I especially like the liberation of the people at the desks whose brains are tethered to gawd knows WHAT.

It won’t be long now…

© 2010, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

“Here’s what all of you have done. You’ve made a sad situation joyous and inspirational. So, to all the people watching, I can never, ever thank you enough for the kindness to me. I’ll think about it for the rest of my life.

Conan O’Brien
The Tonight Show
22 January 2010

This is the way “Coco” departed from The Tonight Show – choked up, humble, vulnerable and a class act all the way. I very much appreciated his final farewell, but I must admit that at the same time, I was baffled and slightly annoyed at the admonishment to “don’t be cynical”. Baffled, because I wasn’t quite sure where that came from, and annoyed because I’d had my run-ins with the word before.

There were a few years during my tenure at the firm when the IT organization (barely) survived a failed outsourcing agreement. More than half of the IT professionals in the firm were outsourced but continued in their positions, while the rest of us “managed” to the terms of the agreement. Almost immediately, 20% of those outsourced were cut by their new employer, but in typical fashion, no one bothered to cut 20% of the work. The agreement was supposed to span Y years for $X billion dollars. It soon became obvious that this was a clash of the titans and a failure of epic proportions. Their marching orders were to do as little as possible for $X billion dollars over Y years and bill us for the balance. Our marching orders were to “manage” them into doing as MUCH as possible for $X billion dollars over Y years and never let them bill us a penny extra. Battle lines were drawn. Long-standing workplace relationships strained and sometimes fell apart. Some good talent left us simply because they felt neglected, cast out and betrayed.

Competition for the internal positions was fierce, and a forced ranking methodology was introduced, accompanied by “360 degree reviews”. This meant you could review each other according to a prescribed format. One of the questions in the 360 review was, “On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being Not At All and 5 being All The Time – how cynical is SoAndSo?”. I ask you – what the HELL does cynicism have to do with my ability to execute? If I’m hitting all my targets and delivering what I said I’d deliver and then some, why should anyone care if I’m intelligent enough to see the way things are and call them as I see them?

I refused to participate in the process. Among my colleagues, I am famous for a few pithy little sayings, but one of the most famous is, “Don’t ever give me a free form text box. Ever.” The 360 review format had free-form text boxes, and I wrote in them – yes all of them – that 360 degree reviews amounted to permission to assassinate one another and I refused to participate. I also told them what I thought of their little outsourcing agreement. I must not have been alone. A few other little insurrections were about to occur. I’ll only tell you about the most famous one.

At the end of two years, a committee from both sides got together to develop a presentation for executive management, all about issues and outcomes and accomplishments and all that stuff. By unanimous consensus, they had the balls to leave the “Accomplishments” slide completely and utterly blank. Management got the message. 360 degree reviews were discontinued, and the outsourcing agreement was dissolved. Everyone was brought back into the firm and given their old titles back without interruption in years of service.

Although executive management eventually acknowledged and corrected their mistakes, there was some serious damage done. We did lose talent, and we did lose cohesiveness. Many fell prey to burnout. Some folks had actually been thriving at the outsourced company. Loyalties had been completely transferred, and these people were really pissed off to be brought back over to the place that had robbed them of their control over their own careers, dumping them unceremoniously. And the final point of impact? The definition of “cynical” had been warped and twisted and used as a weapon, an aversive stimulus. Recognizing and telling an unpleasant truth was bad, it was wrong, it was “cynical”.

It’s difficult to refrain from sinking into the cynical abyss when life gives you so much good material for it. Wretched realities often overshadow their counterparts in this world. The current state of the world economy serves as a prime example. Bad choices made by greedy, bottom line-driven entities for whom the word “enough” has no meaning have resulted in crisis, recession, off-shoring and layoffs, joblessness, homelessness, and financial ruin. Catastrophic “acts of God” cause destruction, devastation, disease and death. How can we prevent these harsh life conditions from eroding our spirits, when our livelihoods, our homes, the very earth we stand on threatens to crumble away? How do we resist the call of the cynic, who says, “See, I told you so!” when it’s so patently obvious that he’s right?

How could it be bad? Cynicism is a by-product of intelligent discernment. It’s a refusal to drink the kool aid. Cynicism has fueled revolutions and helped to overturn oppressive empires. Cynicism has prevented many a snake oil salesman from making off with the family fortune. Cynicism may very well be a Darwinian response, necessary for the survival of the species.

The original Cynics were Greek philosophers. The basis of cynicism at that time was a belief in virtue and nature, and in the rejection of money and power as sources of happiness. Over time, cynicism became known much more for what it rejected than what it embraced. Modern definitions of the word tell us that today’s cynics have very little belief in the existence of virtue, and almost always focus instead on their conviction that all human motivation is selfish. It is tempting to conclude that cynics don’t believe in anyone or anything, but that is not true. Modern cynicism is not the absence of belief; it is a belief in failure, the failure of humans to rise above and reject their baser instincts in favor of virtue.

I wish to point out to Executive Management that there is a vast difference between believing in failure and simply recognizing it.

Clearly, the heartfelt speech delivered by “Coco” at the end of his Tonight Show run indicates that he still strongly believes in the good of man, despite the horrible way he’d just been treated by a bunch of them. You gotta hand it to a man who has been in television this long and still rejects cynicism. Although I’ve read an interview where he claimed to be purely as Irish Catholic as his ancestors who stepped off the boat in pre-Civil War Boston, I have the feeling that “Coco” is actually Greek for “I’m a believer!”.

I think the key to successful cynicism must be balance – go ahead and call ‘em as you see ‘em, but see BOTH the good and the bad. Extremism is never a good thing. See too much good, they’ll call you a Pollyanna. See too much bad, and you’re a misanthrope. See both and you’re… Conan O’Brien

Image: A poster created by Mike Mitchell during the Tonight Show controversy of 2010 displaying his “Coco” nickname.

© 2010, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

Yep. It started on December 20th and it doesn’t end until March 10th – it’s the winter of my discontent! Actually, I think some leaked backwards a day or so. Recall that I was not able to get outta Dodge on Saturday December 19th because of the blizzard that struck the northeast, and I had to cool my jets down here in Florida until Tuesday the 22nd. This shortened my trip to Da Loverly Isle of Long considerably, so much so that I was able to leave half my clothes home but I missed seeing a lot of my friends.

Because the Earth and Mars orbit the Sun at different speeds, there are times when Mars *appears* to be moving backwards. When this retrograde happens – and it’s happening IN MY SIGN, I might add – we can tend toward hesitation when it comes to asserting our desires.

So what am I supposed to be doing right now? I’m supposed to be manifesting. That is to say, I am supposed to be dictating my desires to the Universe and the Universe is supposed to say, “Your wish is my command!” and deliver unto me all that I want.

What if I don’t know what I want? Well, I guess the Universe won’t know what to deliver. A fine mess, I must say. Yet, according to Cafe Astrology, now is the time to be introspective. I dunno, is it just me – does anyone else think I’m a little TOO introspective to begin with? Seriously, it says that I’m to examine my modus operandi for getting what I want, to take some time for reflection, maybe get a little extra rest. It’s one of those enforced rest periods, like when your body decides you’ve been running too long, too hard so it shuts you down with the flu or something. There, now you HAVE to rest!

So if I’m reading this right – the Universe actually endorses this period during which I do not vigorously pursue what I want, because it wants me to reflect and understand and be SURE that what I’m asking for is really what I want.

That fits. I am surprisingly calm, so calm that I cannot muster up a great lot of surprise, actually. Cataclysmic change is occurring at work, which tends to affect the the entire rest of one’s life. Work supports our existence habit. If work is altered, in quality, quantity, proximity, any manner of dimensions, then so is our way of life.

So, this retrograde, period-of-rest thing lets me off the hook nicely on a number of fronts. It tells me that my instincts, at least, are in line with the heavens. For instance, I’ve been told that I need surgery on my sinuses or I’ll just keep getting one sinus infection after another. I hesitated, I walked out of that doctor’s office, even though I liked him (he hates Neti pots!) and had a good feeling about his motivation. I have not made a decision, and I don’t feel any especial impetus to do so any time soon.

Another thing – ever since the changes at work were announced, I’ve watched others scramble out of self-preservation. I used up Monday and Tuesday of last week to scrape a few people off the ceiling. Why is everyone so panicked while I’m so calm? This is the most unusual thing in the world that is happening right now. Everyone BUT me is taking action of some sort. It’s usually the other way around. I’m usually the one who makes things happen. Now, not so much. I’m going to LET things happen instead. They told me what was to happen, and my firmest instinct murmured, “Good. Bring it.” It’s pretty loud, for a murmur. So I’m just going to let it happen. I’m going to let it roll over me like a roaring wave, the kind that brings treasure to the beach.

I’m a treasure. I’m going to land on some beach! That’s kind of exciting, don’t you think?

© 2010, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

I am having a good hair day and wanted to share it with the world :p HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

Posted by Wordmobi

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

I was supposed to be in New York celebrating the Winter Solstice with my “coven” (fancy word for my back home tribe “sistas”) and a stewpot full of root vegetables but, alas! The weather had other ideas. Multiple flights have been canceled since my original departure date of Saturday 12/19, due to blizzard conditions and/or airport closure. So here I sit, doing Yule as a solitary. The moon looked fabulous on the rise tonight, like a crescent cradle in the sky, ready to rock I had a moment of panic when it looked like my wishes would not burn but I kept reminding myself that MY wish is the Universe’s command, and simply re-lit the contents of the prayer bowl before the flames went out.

Yes, the Universe will deliver; however, I was reminded today that this does not mean that we sit back and do nothing. The reminder came in the form of Disney’s latest hand-drawn (yay!) animated film, The Princess and the Frog. Tiana wishes upon the evening star, but she also works HARD to achieve her goals, none of which have anything to do, initially, with being a princess, snagging a prince, or kissing frogs. The Universe WILL join in at some point to ensure a sealed deal, but in the meantime, we must continue to strive toward the goal.

My favorite quote: “oooooh, no – there is NO WAY I am kissin’ a frog AND eatin’ a bug on the same day!”

Favorite song: a gospel number called “Dig A Little Deeper”

When you find out who you are
you’ll find out what you need
Blue skies and sunshine – guaranteed!
Open up the window – let in the light, dearie!
Blue skies and sunshine!
Blue skies and sunshine!
Blue skies and sunshine – guaranteed!

Tomorrow, I get to repack my bags for 4 days instead of 8 and jet my way north to the frozen tundra that is Da Loverly Isle of Long. I am wondering why the Universe wanted me on THIS particular flight, instead of the other two that were canceled…???

Posted by Wordmobi

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

So, I’ve mentioned that before I moved to Florida, I actually made a wish on a shooting star… that I could live in Florida for always! The photograph to the left illustrates precisely where I was standing when this event occurred. The wish was made at Disney’s Boardwalk Villas resort at Walt Disney World, where dreams come true, where magic lives, so naturally it was a shoe-in. I’ve since made another wish on another shooting star, this time not in Walt Disney World, but standing on my lanai here in Florida. That one’s a little longer in manifesting… well, we’re not at Disney, I cannot expect the same quick turnaround!

Suddenly, something comes along, something so terrible it threatens to shatter my faith! Sent to me by Brother No. 2 (FORMERLY my favorite), who apparently just could not leave me with my illusions…….

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

I’m listening to answering machine messages. Mother says, “Take care of your cousins”.  Cousin A says, “so sad”. Cousin P says, “Crying, crying”.  They are talking about the death of my grandmother, which was ‘way back in the early 90s.  I’m thinking, That was years and years ago, how could you still be crying, why would you want to?

Now I’m in the car with my brothers; it’s the next day. At first, I think it’s Orlando, yet it’s not because my grandmother’s house in Queens (NY) is nearby. It is morning, and the sun is coming up to our left, which means we are headed south. It is reflecting, glaringly so, off these fancy buildings – one of them seems to be the Dolphin hotel, but no, it is shaped quite differently and the infrastructure of it (holding all this freakin’ glass together) is like white PVC pipes.  The glare has slowed down traffic immensely, and I’m thinking it should not be allowed, to make buildings like that so close to a major thoroughfare that it would cause danger to drivers.

Now I am in the clinic, and Dr. Karen S. comes out to get me.  I am surprised because 17 years ago, she was my radiation doctor, but I’m here to get chemo.  I don’t know why a radiation doctor would be administering chemo. She brings me in and I start asking questions about side effects.  There is a nurse there assisting her in discussing this with me.  It is Christa, one of my internet Disney geek friends! I ask if I will be too tired to drive myself home after – I can always drive to my grandparents house and crash there, I say, but Karen says I won’t be all that tired until later that night.  I get to the most important, most burning question – will I lose my hair? Karen looks away and says, “That’s what it looks like” and I’m like, “muthafucka…” under my breath, but out loud I say how I finally have a haircut I really like….  As she hangs the bag and prepares the needle, Christa kids that they will top off my cocktail with some fancy hair conditioner.

The alarm goes off.

ANALYSIS / REACTION

I was diagnosed on 10/12/1992, which is my older brother’s birthday.  The anniversary of the death of my grandmother, which was several years prior, I believe is around the same time, maybe 10/10 or 10/11.

For the casting decisions in this dream, I’m applying the technique that everyone in the dream is me, or some aspect of me. We can clearly see that even after all these years, I am still somewhat concerned about cancer, and I still miss my grandmother.  I do tend to become impatient with myself when I behave in ways that reveal what I perceive as weakness.  Actually, that’s my mother talking.  I know that, yet I still feel impatient and scornful of myself for my own vulnerabilities.  Other people are allowed to have them, sometimes, but me, NEVER.  Here, I feel like my cousins are either wusses, or else they are liars, being overly-dramatic, mourning my grandmother’s death like it was yesterday instead of 20-ish years ago.  That’s DEFINITELY my mother talking.  I am so intolerant of myself.

I also have other fish to fry.  Why “Mother” thinks I should take care of **them** when **I** am the one headed off for chemo, is beyond me.  I have tended to do this through life – distract myself from my own shit by taking care of other people’s shit.  Notice that I don’t do that here.  I just listen and then go about my business.  I also cast my brothers as my posse, my “backup” – I did watch “About A Boy” last night, which is about building your support system, your tribe, so you’ll have “backup”.  The person who wrote the “Wear Sunscreen” speech had it right -”Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.”  I know I can count on my brothers.  And there they are, my personal entourage, “I’m feeling alright, I’m with my boys, I’m with my troops, yeah”.  That’s Paul Simon’s “Late In The Evening” and yes, damned near everything reminds me of a song.

On the way from our house on Long Island to my grandmother’s house in Queens, we had to pass the World’s Fair grounds in Flushing Meadow Park.  The World’s Fair was in 1964-1965 and Walt Disney had a hand in designing it.  He also had a few attractions there, such as Carousel of Progress and It’s a Small World.  I loved going to the World’s Fair and remember quite a bit of it, even though I was quite small at the time.  I guess this is why I think it’s Orlando while we are on our way to the clinic and passing my grandparents’ house.

Christa cracks a joke, even while she prepares the implements of destruction and unhappiness. Isn’t that so like me? I will find something either ironic or ridiculous about every situation. Sometimes, it’s to make me feel better, but much of the time, it’s to make others feel better. Taking care of others does seem to be a theme here….

As to the dangerous situation that impedes traffic – I got nuttin’, except maybe that’s cancer itself.  It did throw me off the track of what I’d been striving towards at the time (singing career). But there’s a distracting, blinding aspect to it, and the blindness is what creates the danger. What has blinded me, and what is it that I cannot see? Is it that I cannot see, or is it that I *will* not see? And why is not seeing it so dangerous?

Anyone? Buehler? (that’s an invitation to comment, please!)

Why is Dr. S. doing chemo now?  There’s something not right about that…. if she is me in this dream, well she’s doing something really important, yet radically different from what she did before.  Either she was doing the wrong thing before, or else she’s doing the wrong thing now.  There are people in this world that would say the same of me – they’d say, “I don’t know why a poet-star would be playing Madam Vice President at a bank”.  I cast her in the wrong role in this dream, I did.  Poor “Karen”! 

“Poet-Star” just popped into my head – it’s the name of a poem I wrote, ‘way back in 1979.  The pertinent verses:

One girl lives with music and another lives with death.
One girl’s counting money while another holds her breath.
One girl is a poet, is a singer, is a star.
She searches for a galaxy that seems so very far.
She wants to be the center of a universe somewhere.
She wants to be with sunshine, but it’s raining over there….

The poet, singer, star was always me. The other girls were all friends of mine, people who aspired to be a musician, a nurse, a banker and someone who was in sort of a holding pattern at the time. But how prophetic – today, you could say they are ALL me, pieces of me at points in time. I studied voice and performed for 20-something years. I had cancer, a brush with death. I am, indeed, Madam Vice President at a bank. Waiting, waiting, waiting…. for what? For “something”…

Don’t get me wrong. I have a good life, one that is largely of my own making, a fact that is personally pretty satisfying. But clearly (and on several different fronts), I’m not where I’d intended to be, all those years ago, and the urge to fix that, to embark upon a terrifying course-correction, is going to come to a point of critical “mass”, probably soon.

I do believe cancer is only a metaphor this time. Actually, it was a metaphor last time, too, only it manifested into reality, somehow.

“Something’s coming…..”. I will need to remember the entire verse this time, so it manifests into what will make me happy.

Something’s coming!
I don’t know
what it is
but it is gonna be great!

You know what, I do too know what it is. But it’s terrifying. I have that awful/exhilarating adrenaline rush that you get AFTER you just narrowly avoided a car accident. I’m shaking while typing this. I never shake. Shit.

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

One of the great things about going home to New York, to The Loverly Isle of Long for Christmas is that I get to see the “back home” tribes and hang with them just like old times. This year is special – I’ll be home in plenty of time to make a Winter Solstice celebration with my friends. The Winter Solstice aka Yule is typically observed on December 21st, the shortest day/longest dark of the year. Solstice is all about the rebirth of the sun; in terms of the Wheel, we are at the lowest point of the year, but you know what that means – the only way left to go is up The purpose of the feast is to celebrate the beginning of the end of the dormancy period of the year, and prepare for a fresh start. The clean slate of a new year stretches into the future before us, upon which we get to write… ANYTHING WE WANT! How cool is that?

And so, we’ll go to the woods to gather greenery. Back at home, we’ll prepare the meal, deck the halls and set the table. We’ll light the candles and we’ll write on those clean slates, earnest notes filled with our desires, our requests of the Universe. And then we shall set them aflame and watch as the fire transforms them into sparks of prayer, rising through the crisp air into the night sky to become one with the stars, to be heard and fulfilled.

And then, we shall feast.

I did a little googling this weekend, to find appropriate foods upon which we should be feasting on the Solstice. Feasting and celebrating is something people can look forward to as the earth turns ever colder and darker leading up to Solstice. Anticipation of the celebration, of being able to put the darkest days behind us helps to counteract the depressive psychological effects of winter. When it’s so dark like this, we have too much melatonin, which causes malaise. That might be appropriate for bears, who are supposed to sleep away the winter, but most adult humans are expected to be productive. We need to find ways to assist ourselves in pushing past the darkness.

Anything that puts us in the presence of negative ions will lift our mood and make us feel energized. Isn’t that odd, that “negative” produces positive in us? In nature, places that tend to be negatively ionized are mountains, streams, forests and beaches. This may be why people flock to these types of places for relaxation and rejuvenation. There are other negatively-charged things we can use to help erase stress and seasonal fatigue. A wood fire, bees wax, green plants – all of these things can help to make us “of good cheer”. I guess we now know why we burn candles, deck the halls and have a Yule log. These things make us feel better and help us to to feel celebratory, to have hope that winter WILL end and that the life-bringing warmth of spring WILL return to us. The ancients may not have known about a substance called melatonin, but they knew that the air was filled with a magical, uplifting energy after a lightening storm, and that communing with nature by the side of a waterfall brings comfort and peace.

So you can see where I’m going with this. I now wanted to know – what foods carry a negative charge and make us feel good? Survey says – those foods that are alkaline help deposit negative ions into our bodies and are good mood enhancers. Most fruits and vegetables are alkaline, and they assist in combating the acidification of the blood. The more negative ions our blood carries, the better our metabolic, autonomic and immune systems function, and our skin and tissues are more elastic.

Googling once again, I discovered lists of alkaline vegetables, and most of them seemed to mention root vegetables like carrots, garlic, turnips and onions (we already knew about the root veggie-Yule connection). Other interesting things at the top of a few of the lists I found were broccoli, artichokes and leeks.

When I read about the leeks, I remembered a book I’d read called French Women Don’t Get Fat and how leek soup – with or without root vegetables and beans – is a staple food of the French woman’s diet. There’s even a recipe in the book, which uses lentils as the beans and can optionally be turned a little “creamy” by melting together a pat of butter and some flour and throwing that in at the last moment. They sometimes throw in some sort of browned French sausage that’s described in the book as a high-end hot dog. Ewww! I think we’ll be forgiven if we alter the ethnicity a bit and use Italian sweet sausage instead

All the while I’ve been writing this post, my thoughts have been drawn repeatedly back to the prospect of the blank slate. I have that feeling that I used to get (and sometimes still get) when I was a young girl, filling marble-covered composition books with poems, stories and the minutiae of my existence. When one book is all done, you get to start a new one, and THAT, my friends, is a magical and sacred moment. You walk it reverently to the desk and turn back the cover… it’s blank! The pages are pure, empty yet ripe with the promise of endless possibility. What events, what aspirations, what desires and dreams will manifest upon these pages?

Anything we want.

Anything we want!

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

The future’s in the air
I can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change …
Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the wind of change (Scorpions)

Need to make a list:

• I spend too much time in front of the computer
• I spend too much time doing things out of a sense of obligation/duty/responsibility
• Although I am capable of extreme focus, my interests tend to roam far and wide
• All of the above leads to a deficit of personal bandwidth
• … and in the last few years, a deficit of personal accomplishment
• Changes at work again *sigh*
• Change because you have to SUCKS
• Change because you want to is liberating
• A little less dreaming, a little more doing
• I need to reprioritize

Turn and face the strange
ch-ch-changes… (David Bowie)

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.