carmax kicked my ass

Worst fears realized (realised) when you have to PAY someone to take your car. My beloved little Matrix, sold for a song to corporate robbers.

So now I am homeless, jobless, and carless. Amazing how few keys I have.

5 days till Virgin flight. And in between stands my entire wardrobe and 75 pairs of shoes, awaiting packing. Isn't this when the little fairies come in? I've lost my vim.

coaching profile photo

be bold & might forces will come to your aid

Thank the lord jesus.
I am in the final final dregs of my days here at the office and weeding through seemily ancient, 2000 and 2001 files, papers and even more startling -- e-mails.

Do you keep your old e-mails -- both sent and received? Take a gander back. It almost hurts your teeth how shiny and clear the past hurls into your present. I have not been the least bit sad until I started reading from my "keepers" e-mail folder. Whew- for people like me who rely heavily on e-mail sustenance during the day, they brought me back. The keepers are kept for the extreme -- good and bad and reading through them made me flood with the feeling that has been uptapped through this moving/quitting/leaving adventure. Friends going, work appreciated, rough drafts of hard words to say to the boy, and even more precious small notes of reminders of love.

I read them and felt them and didn't keep them. I wonder if that was a mistake.

Now just add some margaritas and see what happens.

I know that later I will miss this familiar yawn of time where people, places and space are achingly familiar and details glossed over. But for now it just seems like these odd days just stand between the now and the then of my future and I am restless for the beginning to begin.

it talks?

This is for you, kq.

start where you are

My sister Barbara has a generous library and I am lucky enough to do some daytime browsing.

Pema Chodron is an American Buddhist nun and meditation master. Been flipping through her book, Start Where You Are.

This struck me.

The underlying point of all our study and practice is that the happiness we seek is our birthright. To discover it we need to be more gentle with ourselves, more compassionate toward ourselves and our universe. The happiness we seek cannot be found through grasping, trying to hold on to things. It cannot be found through getting serious and uptight about wanting things to go in a direction that we think will bring happiness. We are always taking hold of the wrong end of the stick. The point is that happiness we seek is already here and it will be found through relaxation and letting go rather than through struggle.

Having just made a big decision to change my life, it is something I think I need to remember. Too often we think we know what should happen and round peg/square hole it.

For once, I am trying to let things happen more organically. Something I think we all can consider.

charming again

Ok- votes are in.

Kelly, Mary & Gary nixed the whispering cheese title and agreed that 'charming gardener' was more pleasing.

Appreciate the democratic process. (although I did get a thumbs up on the cheese one from a stranger. I forget people can SEE this.)

Too annoying?

That I keep changing everything on this?

I am vaguely dissatisfied with the layout/naming convention, etc.

Truth is, I am having Blog Envy.

Rob Mini Cooper's blog (http://www.robcooper.blogspot.com/) is pithy and cool and smart and has neato pictures. I never should have looked at Rob Mini Cooper's blog. Plus, HIS friends actually COMMENT and write stuff. Now I feel inadequate and like I have to be insightful and clever. Darn that Mini Cooper.

Let me ask you, gentle readers, your opinion, since you ostensibly are to be reading this flipping thing.

Name of my blog
Cheese Whisper too queer? Am I trying too hard here? Was charming gardener better?
Here were other ideas -- I wish I was able to say they were my ideas, but I surfed for them. Is amazing what one can find on that there internet.
Whadda you think?

• Zip Up Your Rants
• The Salty Pigeon
• Soul You Know
• Smile Quotient
• Mainlining Happiness
• Know Order
  

Please Vote. (Speaking of voting -- I just registered in VA, so I can get my absentee ballot. And my vote may even count!)

what is your very british name?

Per this name generator, I am Charlotte Callaghan.
Take The Very British Name Generator today!

I know, dumb. I am the Very Bored Short-Timer Thinking About Britian.

Washing pints and scrubbing floors?

Just found out my application for my student visa was rejected. Guess they don't consider my coach school a recognised credited educational institution.

Hope I can get some form of employ over yonder. I keep thinking about all the jobs we give 'illegals' here -- yucky ones. I guess I could wash dishes at the chip shoppe. Or made beds up at the hotel. No nappy (ie?) changing, though. Made it to ripe 36 w/o ever doing it, damned if I'll do it for cash.

So, plan B is to see what happens. Although isn't that really everyone's plan A?

Bridges to Virginia

I'm OUT.
Of my apartment.
Of keeping the "secret" (which was not very secret) of my pending move.

Bosses know.
Notice given.
Friends and family all know.
I'm free to slack off, fake laugh at short-timer jokes, and be taken to lunch.

A good step.

I am ending my 12-year stint in DC doing the one thing I was able to avoid all this time -- commuting. Thanks to air conditioning and the To Go cup from Barbara's house full of Barbara's coffee, I can almost get the love/hate/glazed/drone feeling driving down Glebe, passing the many ambiguous ethnic eateries and CVSes with parking lots. (They exist!)

This does let me know just how ready for a change I really am -- I am already glad for a new view -the Landmark Theater near her house -- different restaurants, different weird neighbors. Sometimes it is just better to trade old shit for new shit. It takes a while to realize it is still shit, but fun in the discovery.

Count down.