Love this song

Sword of Damocles

I am so very tired. Everywhere I look, I see trend lines, I see tables with numbers and percentages dancing before my blurred vision.

Deadlines, deadlines, delays. Ugh!

Alphabet soup

One of my fellow mommy board friends posted the following questions the other day on our board:

What was your maiden name?
What is your married name?
Do you hyphenate (sp? you know, this thing - ) and use both last names?
Do you like your married name better/worse/indifferent?
Did you/will you use your maiden name for your kids in some way (middle name etc?)

I swallowed hard and proceeded to reply, knowing full well I would elicit multiple "what the f..." responses.

You see, in Puerto Rico, like in many Latin American countries, people carry two family names (one from the father and one from the mother). To simplify matters, outside of legal documents, one may or may not drop the second of them. And some of us who move to the US and want to continue using both names, tend to hyphenate them so people use them in the right order. To Americans, who only have one last name, this can be highly confusing. I have also noticed that I am in the minority in my group in that I have kept my maiden names.

So in my house, my husband and youngest daughter have one last name. My oldest, who was born and registered in Puerto Rico, carries her father's and mine. And I use both my maiden names, hyphenated so people don't drop one of them. It must be mind boggling for some, but I like it just fine.

Tug of war

On the subject of blasts from the past, I was looking at Pancho's (Paula's dad) new blog, Legión Miope. His blog, and the links featured in it, also brought back memories. Memories of who I was a long time ago, and the Puerto Rico literary scene. You see, when Pancho and I met we both were "young writers". The difference is he kept on doing it, and I have continued other pursuits.

I never felt too comfortable in the island literary scene, of which I was only a very minor footnote years ago, in the early nineties, when two short stories I wrote were published in an anthology called El Rostro y la Máscara. Those years of my life were part of my existential fog phase; my "I'm in the middle of a breakdown but damned if I'll admit it" years.

I never fit in with the young, Puerto Rican writers. It's not like there was an official group or anything, more like a certain personality profile. I wasn't very defiant. Or I was, but not about the right things. I don't particularly like elaborate prose and I did not particularly want to make a stand or stick it to the man. I just wanted to write about things that came from a very personal place, as a way to help me figure things out. Writers in Puerto Rico are expected to have strong opinions on our island and the status of its relationship with the US. My opinions were not the kind they would have liked to hear. Bottom line, I always felt inadequate, not measuring up. That says something about me if I could not even fit in with the misfits.

So Pancho's blog got me thinking of all that again, stirred up some of those old feelings. I looked at the links he's got, which includes my blog alongside several literary blogs. I'm pretty sure that when people go checking out his links and find my blog they are going to go what the fuck, who let this one in????

But why the hell am I worrying about what this other, hypothetical people think? Aren't I the one who preaches live and let live, be true to yourself and all that other crap? Why am I suddenly feeling guilty for not being edgy enough, for not continuing to write feverishly over the years?

Oh, well.

Mi gente

Thursday I received a visit that brought back memories.

When I started working for Big Computer in 1997, I was at the Puerto Rico office. This was prior to the big merger, and we were a small, seven people team in an office in Hato Rey. The person who interviewed me and recommended they hire me was the Service Manager. His name is Wilfredo.

Wilfredo and I are the only two people left at Big Computer from those original Puerto Rico seven. We both had relocated to Texas from Puerto Rico to work at the Latin America regional headquarters. Wilfredo then relocated to South Florida a few years later. Last week he was in Houston for meetings, and we met to say hi and chat for a bit. That was nice. I had not seen him in at least 5 years and we updated each other on our families. I asked him about the move to South Florida (he does not like it) and we also talked about some of our mutual friends, and about the politics of our old Latin America group.

The visit made me reconnect with myself, with a part of my past, and I was grateful for that.

Tweaking again

I just changed my background color again. I wish this palette had turquoise blue or sea green available. This is the closest I got to that. Not too close.

I have an overwhelming urge to see the ocean today. The nearest beach is in Galveston, which is the color of milky coffee, as a friend said to me. Not exactly what I have in mind.

Clutter

Ugh. I feel like my life is full of clutter.

My house is clutter central. I don't enjoy having so much crap lying around. Really. I have dreams of living in a minimalist environment. But there is all this... stuff. All over my house. Out of place. Books, toys toys and more toys, shoes, an overload of papers (letters, daycare daily reports, piles of school papers, catalogs, magazines, receipts, bills, important papers). Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have never been a housecleaning enthusiast (well, that's an understatement). I get easily overwhelmed, I don't know how or where to start, I am usually feeling too tired after work, I get discouraged easily, only looming deadlines move me to action, yada yada yada. Last time I cleaned in full force it was for Paula's birthday party. I was wiped out after that. I need to do some intensive cleaning this Sunday. I am dreading it already.

My mood today is unspecified anxious. I am not sure why. On the mommy board front, it seems like things are starting to get resolved. It's not over yet, but it looks like we are heading in the right direction. So my mood is not tied to the mommy board affair. For the first time in days I am not upset or bothered by that. Why the general feeling of dread, then? Not sure. Maybe it's biological reasons. Maybe it's work. There are deliverables that I wished we could have finished yesterday, but we could not. We have been pretty tight on money too, so it might be that too. Gabe was waiting on several clients to pay him, and I had to dip into my close to non-existent savings to pay two weeks of daycare. He finally got paid yesterday, so I may get my emergency fund back to normal levels.

Paula leaves for Puerto Rico Thursday of next week. I have to start getting her suitcase ready.

Tuesday

Gabe has started going back to the gym since Sunday. I think it's great. Sunday we all went to the YMCA. I took the girls to the outside family pool and he went to use the weights and the treadmill. Then he went again yesterday after work and did the treadmill again.

I am happy and very proud of him. I also am very conscious of the fact that my encouragement is helping him go. This is a tricky area because if I push too much, I get the opposite effect, so I have been careful to be gentle in my support.

As for me, I have not started going to the gym again yet. I lack the motivation. I am not happy with how I look, with how I feel. But I feel like it's an insurmountable task, to try to get in shape. I am hoping that Gabriel's example will help me get going. But I don't want to jeopardize his momemtum by suggesting we do things together. In fact, I have vehemently told him that he does not need to wait for me to be with him at the gym to get in shape. I don't want him to tie his effort to mine because I don't want to jeopardize his success.

I am sad this morning, for other reasons. I am disenchanted about something that was near and dear to me, something in which I have invested a good amount of time. It's like the end of a romance, when you take off the veil and see things from a different perspective.

How far is too far?

This past weekend I have been thinking a lot about friendships, "online" versus "in real life" and the hybrid kind that encompasses both. I have also been thinking a lot about group dynamics and message boards codes of conduct.

When it comes to disagreements between members of message boards, how far is too far? How much are you willing to put up with? Where do we draw the line? What do we do with members who are clearly out of line? Would you be inclined to cut some slack to people you know and love in real life?

Those of you who belong to Mommy Boards, what does the board represent to you? What kind of community do you wish to belong to? How tolerant are you when it comes to conflic in your board

I'll answer for myself. I draw the line at personal attacks, particularly when they are done with the intent to ridicule, dismiss or hurt someone. I want my board to be a place where mature adults meet. Sure there are bound to be differences. And sometimes people say things without thinking. Sometimes feelings are hurt inadvertently. But adults know when to stop, when to take a step back. When people go out of their way to provoke fights or to be rude and mean to others, that is not cool.

Blah (Mood series)

The swing is gone. For now. This music better matches my mood this morning. For the record, it's Nirvana's "Something in the way".

Am I spending too much time on the Internet?

There was drama on my mommy board yesterday. A debate thread on the topic of adoption devolved into nasty name calling and cursing. One of the people involved took offense to someone's opinion. An opinion that may have been stated in better terms than she did, but a general opinion nevertheless, not directed to anyone in particular. The person who got offended is in a sensitive situation right now, because of fertility issues, and her reaction was completely out of proportion. Which is usually a sign that a lot more was going on in her head/heart than what the debate was about. Like someone said to me, it was literally like watching someone have a complete breakdown, post by post.

This whole thing is very unfortunate, and it comes on the heels of another incident between members that happened recently. Our board was founded on the premise that we were all responsible adults who could monitor ourselves, so we are very flexible and don't have strict rules. I feel like this incident has laid bare one of the weak points of that approach. To me the board should be a safe haven for all of us, and yesterday's incident is making me feel skeptical about the longevity of our current group. People are leaving, or taking breaks. Feelings are hurt. Everybody is asking "how do we move on?" I wish I knew, but this morning, right now, I am not very optimistic about the whole thing.

And frankly, I am angry. Angry that our board was highjacked by such ugliness. I don't care what are the reasons why people blew up the way they did. I think after a certain point, people need to wash their dirty laundry through more private methods (private messages, e-mail, phone calls) rather than exposing the complete group to it and threaten the stability of the board. That's my opinion and I am sticking to it!