Freedom!

My mother always had a stash in a personal account, separate (but not secret) from the household. In it, she had enough money to buy an airline ticket to just about anywhere in the world. She had it, she said, in case she needed to leave. For years I thought she meant "to take care of an emergency", "to see her parents/friends", or even "to visit London on a whim." It wasn't. She had the cash on hand because not having it meant she was a prisoner in her own life.

I finally understand her actions. Not because I'm unhappy (as she was), but because of ToDo.

I need lists. Grocery lists (usually) keep me from overspending - and if I get what I went in for (extras be damned) then they've done at least one job. Class lists help me remember who's going to be in my room that day, allowing me to put a mental face with a name before they actually start gathering at the door - a sort of non-tele-prompter for the socially challenged. And my ToDo helps me organize myself when I have too much spinning in my head.

When I have too much spinning in my head. That's the key. Not when I'm happy, or when I'm not busy at work, or when I'm without a car (for four weeks!) - it's when I have so much going on I need help sifting through it all.

Yeah, my malaise was not because I'm happy but because my nice, safe little compartment-rich house of cards slowly, slowly, slowly turned into The Bastille. And I escaped it.

Again.

Life is a banquet, right? And most poor suckers are starving, right? And I'd locked myself into the gridlines of my List as surely as if I'd tied myself to a tree, right?

Absolutely. The breakout happened this morning, just hit my Plan like a wrecking ball, knocking down the Walls of Jericho with a song that sounded like ... Freedom! I was excited, ecstatic, thrilled to realize all I had to do is tear up that horrid piece of paper to feel the honeyed breeze in my hair, taste the sweet choices on my tongue.

And I did - and then I had to share my moment with my husband.

"I just can't keep overplanning, honey," I said, my arms windmilling with the power of being able to windmill. "I tore up that stupid list! I need choices, not rigidity! A suggestion, not an order!"

The love of my life glanced up once, then turned his head away, gazing fixedly at the wall beside the bed. "Mm ..." he said.

"I have to keep myself on my toes, not my ass," I went on, "ready to shift at a moment's notice. Like this weekend - that rummage sale was so much fun, and I love, love, love my three dollar leather jackets! And when (Acid Trip) got sick afterward and we couldn't finish anything around here, I sulked! I sulked like a big, sulky stick-in-the-mud and watched five straight hours of DVD crap!" I huffed as he stifled a smile. Obviously, he wasn't getting my point. "No, seriously! I need to quit acting like Rut Girl! I'm the Queen of Chaos, the Bunny of Change, the - the Woman of Toe-Keeping! I'm free!"

He started convulsing, then pulled the sheet up over his mouth, turned my way ... and laughed at me with his stunning blue eyes. "What?" I asked, confused.

He wouldn't tell me (and probably never will) but it felt familiar, that conversation. Then I remembered. I've said it all before, more or less - but definitely more than once.

Don't you hate it when your existential-crisis profundity turns out to be a rerun?

You'd think by now I'd be used to the rollercoaster that is my emotional and intellectual state, that's I'd be sick of any ah-ha moments that I've had a million times before. And yet, though this morning reminded me of 50 First Dates - who knew I'd paint that same flower twice a year for thirty years - I don't care. Even when the Big Lug laughs at me (or even you do, since I've also posted on this), I don't care. If I have to "discover" this concept a hundred times more, if I have to "figure out" it's time to shift from Meticulous Soup to Possibility Gumbo, to give myself a list of opportunities instead of must do's, then what of it?

I'm free!

Sure, it would be nice to learn to alternate, to remember to take advantage of the ebb and flow at all times - but wouldn't that make it a plan? Wouldn't that lock me into a groove, a rut, a straightjacket just as surely as that list did (again)?

It's time to give myself the freedom of choice (again). Spring is as unpredictable as I seem to be lately, freezing one moment, hot and stuffy the next, Sturming and Dranging enough to break a damn the next. My mom needed money to allow her the fantasy of going on the lam. I already have the dream; I need a different kind of account, one full of projects and treasures that I can use to graze on, to pick and choose from at will, to fill my days with whatever presents itself ... and one that allows me to take advantage of not just my own schedule but any of my kids' (or spouse's) schedules as well in order to get things done.

Gather ye opportunities while ye may. Keep the schedule for the paid job - toss it for the life. That's the plan ... er, the strategy ... uh, the agenda ... oh, hell, it's the rough draft.

For now.

Again.

Clueless

I'm stumped. I've stared at this empty page, off and on, for three hours - even started a half-dozen posts, only to wipe them clean before I was more than a paragraph into it. Why? I don't know for sure, but I think it might be ... because I'm happy.

I have no reason to be happier today than I've been before. Actually, since the Big Lug and I had The Talk last night (you know, the one in which I warn him his entire life is about to change because I'm ripping the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen to shreds in the next few months), and it didn't go as well as I'd hoped (he really is kind of locked into his familiar-is-better-even-when-it's-crappy thing), I have every reason to be unhappy instead. But I'm not. I love the man to distraction, and his lack of enthusiasm doesn't hinder me at all, except to make the changes a bit slower than I normally would - and maybe leave a bit more clutter on my plan to help him make the transition. This makes my house plans a bit trickier, a bit smaller, even a bit tamer, but still a home because it will be for both of us instead of just for me.

Happy-making? Not really. Yet that deep core of contentment lingers. And it's distracting.

Is that weird?

Quickies

I really am obsessed with "time" things lately aren't I? Hm. Maybe there's a reason. Maybe I need to think, to ponder, to muse here ... But not today. For now, as usual, I'm pressed for time, so, in honor of my 100th post, I'm doing the blogging equivalent of a medley - lots of shorter items, not one big post ...

... I bought a gold pan today. No, not a pan made of gold but a panning pan. Yep, I found out that there's an active gold mine not 40 minutes from my house. I can't get into the mine, of course (private) but there's a stretch of public-land streambed just down from it. It's not Placer gold (you've figured out by now I'm east of the Rockies, right?) but all that means is it'll be harder to get at. I'm nothing if not tenacious, though, at least when it comes to gold ...

... Speaking of which, I've been watching way too much CNBC (and Jon Stewart) lately. No, I never actually thought there was a "war" between them, but I realized that everybody is looking for a scapegoat. Personally, after wading through video, print, and 'net denials of responsibility for the current economic troubles (mostly by the same people who were claiming credit just a couple of years ago for the previous prosperity) after sifting through bales of speculation (sorry, reporting) of the trail of greed-cash leading like empty Snickers wrappers to the current Lemming cliff (sidebarred by "Where The Smart Mob Leader Should Point His Angry Villagers: Three Experts Tell All"), and even after pulling up every graph and data table possible (including a quaint section of the 2005 budget, from the actual Budget Office, projecting anticipated revenues through 2010), what I've realized is ... drumroll please ... not a single person knows what the hell is really wrong or how to fix it. Apparently everyone (including me) keeps forgetting that statistics are great windows to the past, but are crap to see into the future with any confidence. So I've basically come to the conclusion that I have no problem with the current game of tossing spaghetti against the wall until something sticks - for as long as we can actually afford the pasta ...

... On the weather front, spring has sprung (open) its trap around here, and that means both tons of pollen and bags o' bugs. The pollen has sucked me dry (hence the short things - who can focus?) and the bugs are grossing me out. I'm not a fan of chemicals in any form, but I might have to break out the antihistimines. And I am (I'm ashamed to admit), after three unsuccessful years of natural remedies in the garden, I actually am going to break out the nukes. Those blasted brown stink bugs and the stupid box elder thingies are taking over my yard and my house, and ew. Sigh ...

... In other news, I have another week with little or no handy transportation, but this is good. I was bored stupid last week (yay) and so I got a couple of the nastiest jobs done. I will be worse this week (cha-ching). I just have to be careful of my hands and my back this time. And, of course, I really need to finish my taxes first ...

... Head Trip and I are starting a new web site, aimed at resourcing all the ways to live the good life on a much smaller budget, ways that both of us have found (the hard way) over the past few years. It won't be Paris-Hilton-level of living, but it should be quite something ... sort of a "Bunny Lite" - all the money things without all of (okay, most of) the philosophy ...

... My nighttime dreams lately have been filled with visions of this house as it can be. Now I need to find the stuff to make it so ... at yard sales and thrift shops and curbside ... and, of course, somehow get the work done ...

... I have two treasure-hunting trips planned as of now - one on 4 April, the other the first week of June (while on our way to my mother's 70th birthday celebration). There will be many impromptu trips and digs, as well, and not just to that gold-laden (I hope) stream. All, I promise, will be chronicled here ...

For now, I have a tutorial to attend to. Happy Spring, to one and all!

Now get out there and Hunt!

When It's Time ...

I thought it rather interesting that my 99th post would come on my 20th anniversary. No, not the Big Lug and me (we're almost to 30) but me and myself. You see, 20 years ago today I woke with one of the worst hangovers I'd ever had (and that's saying something). My best friend from high school had come down the night before to keep my company while the Big Lug was stationed overseas. I (more or less) cooked dinner as I drank quite a bit of this very sweet wine she'd brought (hence the more or less), and we laughed and laughed and laughed (or was that just me?). And then ... then I induced a hearty power-ralph before she left so I wouldn't vomit while alone.

So 20 years ago today I woke up, squinted at my convulsive bed-head in the mirror, sucked on my swollen and (frankly) foul-tasting tongue, and quit drinking forever.

Funny thing, that - the just quit part. I don't know how I knew, but I really did know at that moment that I'd never touch another drop of alcohol. Chocolate, yes. Junk food galore. Even a few longing looks at the cooking sherry. But other than one accident involving a good long slug of a Bud (which I swore was a Sharp's), March 18th, 1989, was good for the last drop.

My mother told me once that not many people have my strength of will. She points to that day as proof. But it wasn't will power - it was simply time. And so while I celebrate this day (quietly, with much gratitude) I don't usually celebrate. At least I haven't in the past, not really. This year, however, when I was looking at my crazy-this-week calendar, frowning over all the things I have scheduled (taxes, two days of electrical work, cat's blood work) I realized it wasn't because I knew I'd have no students but because I needed to prove somehow that I'd changed, too.

Is that strange? 20 years have gone by, but I still felt the need to show myself ... myself.

So today, no fanfare, no dinner out, and (horrors!) no jewelry. Instead, I commemorated the day by breaking ground on the 20th Anniversary Sober-Bunny Memorial Entryway. Yep, I spent most of the day yanking and scraping up the vinyl flooring that the last owners had glued right on top of the solid oak flooring. (Sorry about the italics - but do you blame me?)

Oddly enough, a glance in the mirror tells me I look more like the old me right now than any Straight-Arrow Bunny - okay no skunk-coated tongue of the old days, but definitely a familiar set of bruised and abraded knuckles (from hitting the floor not other people, though) and the wild hair-and-eyes-behind-the-glasses (sprinkled with little paper-and-glue bits) look hauntingly familiar.

Not a bad thing, either. It reminds me that one of the reasons I drank was because I feel things so much more than most people seem to, maybe even think more than most people seem to ... moralize more than most people seem to (at myself, more than anyone else). "Fast forward" and "dead stop" might be my only two speeds, but nowadays I don't try to slow down who I am because I have seen who I am ... I let myself see who I am ... and y'know what? I like who I am, who I've become, if for no other reason than I like what liking me comes to - including everything that Mama Angel, my Inner Diva, and even my little devils bring into my life.

After all, in only a few short months I've found it time for "$5 mil by '21" and "house-to-home on a shoestring," time for a loss of nearly 80 pounds and an exercise routine that would make Bob Greene proud (along with that Bunny smile!), and time for a return of risk-taking and treasure hunting (in all its myriad and miraculous forms). I like myself now because I love the life I've allowed myself to have.

And I truly can't wait to see what the next 20 years - and the next 100 posts - will bring into it.

Crunch Time

I have no brain. I'm staring at a very long To Do list, knowing I've been neglecting it for no reason whatsoever. (Due date for all this stuff? Yesterday.) I'm also staring at a calendar empty of students but full of commitments - electrician for two days, cat to vet, errands to store and mall. I also see something else. A class. A class I wasn't going to take, but ...

Here's a riddle: What do you do when you're stuck between a rock and a hard place?

Answer: Crunch.

I didn't cave about my classes. Well, not exactly. I did feel the pressure, though, and I did decide to compromise - I'm working two of the five Saturdays I was asked to work. I chose the two to coincide with what is usually slow yard sale days - after all, it's technically still winter. Around here, that means lots and lots of rain for awhile longer, weather that is not conducive to treasure hunting of any kind, so why not fill it, right?

Wet rock and practical hard place.

I also still have no extra car - Acid Trip hasn't settled out his dead car issue, so he's still driving one of ours. I rented a Mazda Thursday through today because I needed the extra wheels to get me to and from work and errands. But tomorrow I have no students (I'll take and pick up the Big Lug from work), and the next two days I have no electricity (and no freedom, since the guy will be yanking bits of my basement apart), so I'm not really needing it.

Mixed blessing rock and loving patience hard place.

See, I'm student-free so the money is hit and miss right now. I'm a tutor, so I'm one of the first expenses to go. Yes, I've spent the last year positioning us so that we don't have many expenses but household, but we do still have loans to pay ... and I have a couple of big things coming - the panel upgrade (finally) Wednesday, the cat's hyperthyroid meds (about $50. a month plus regular blood panels), and my mother's 70th birthday trip in June. The cash for most of it is in the bank right now, but I don't like all that empty space on my calendar. Should I cancel the panel? Cut cable and cell phones? Allowances? Anything resembling a mellow took a serious hit today when I found that my paycheck didn't make it to the bank. Again. Bugs in the new system at work or perfidious plot? Keep trusting or find a new plan?

Panicky rock and paranoid hard place.

Yeah, I'm feeling the squeeze. I didn't know what a "sail cat" was until recently - a feline that's been run over so many times that it's paper thin and will ... yep ... "sail" like a Frisbee - but I'm starting to know how the silly thing might feel. Not one load but many rolling over and over me, pushing, pushing, pushing. Flat as a pancake. Ground to powder. Crunched to mush.
It isn't the darkest, though, and I know it. There are a few bright spots. 1) With no electricity (no TV) and no car (escape), I'll be forced to do all the things on ToDo (darned batteries!). 2) The weather is cold enough that the food won't spoil (much). And 3) Pressure produces something else, too, something I not only relate to but that I actually aspire to:

Diamonds.

Oh yeah, I can do this.

Reaction Time

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Newton's Third law of motion. We've heard it a hundred times, but have we ever stopped to think what it truly might mean? Especially to a fun-lovin', treasure-huntin' Bunny like me?

I have, and more than once. The classic explanation is simple, even obvious - in order to propel an object forward, an equivalent force must be exerted backward (onto a resisting or more stable force if you actually want "forward" instead of "staying put"). A diver bounces on the board to get maximum height from a low position. A runner cues up on blocks (anchored to the track) that remain stationary so he can utilize all of his push-off instead of wasting some of it on the gravelly spurt of old-time races. And to move very quickly (called "jetting") an octopus shoots jets of water out of its ... well, its butt and mouth seem to be in sort of the same place, so I'm not sure I want to go there. Suffice it to say, the eight-legged beastie is going in head-first - and sort of blind.

The decidedly non-classic explanation is more complicated.

See, essentially, every time you take an action in life, good or bad, this law states you leave ripples in your wake. That's easy to understand - we've all hurt or been kind to someone and seen the results of our action pretty quick. But usually it's confined to the other, not to ourselves, right? So why do all the major religions and philosophies have a version of Newton's law?

They do, trust me. Call it Karma, the Law of Returns, or Reaping and Sowing, it's all the same: not only is there an equal reaction trailing behind us, somehow it actually comes back to us, and in the same form, too.

Part Conservation of Energy ("it can neither be created nor destroyed"), and part Inertia (it'll keep moving in the same direction something else acts on it), it starts to make sense if you mix in a little blast from the past - a Mobius Strip.

You remember making those, right? Elementary school? Take one long, straight band of paper, give it a twist, then glue the ends together. Now trace its flat face with your finger, never breaking contact. Around and around and around, always coming back to the beginning, always running over again - a freeway that never ends, maybe even gets faster and faster as it goes, until your eager hand snaps the paper and breaks free of the system. That's what happens to all that energy we expend, I think; it comes back to us over and over (because it's in motion) until we figure out how to end (or never leave) the crazy, spiral circle of consequence.

I've been thinking about this a lot today, mainly because I threw one doozy of a tantrum yesterday.

I went (early) to my thrift store, for the first time in five weeks, picked out a couple of decent pieces from a very picked over inventory, then wandered around to see if anything else caught my eye. By the time I returned, three other shoppers were there. The clerk brought out a box of new items (I hadn't asked if there was anything not yet out), and we all dug in - I ended up snatching for some reason (first mistake), and in my haste dropped a bagged pendant to the counter, unnoticed, where another person picked it up. I should have just taken it (it was $3.99) when I grabbed it, but in my greed, I didn't. By the time I noticed, it was too late to get back - and the nearly unreadable marking turned out to be (we think) 14K, so the green stone is probably an emerald (dark, so engineered or South American) and the white ones are probably diamonds. Not mine, though. Hers.

At least I waited until I got to the car before I went all Krakatoa.

After one broken blood vessel in my hand (from pounding the steering wheel) and a sore throat from growling and crying, I thought about what just happened - all of it. I don't know which was the more horrifying image - my Gollum imitation in the store ("my precious") or the screaming, rampaging Harpy driving down the parkway.

What I now realize is that, when it comes to the seven Deadlies, I've not come as far as I'd thought - I'm still rushing around that Escher-like beltway, never getting anywhere near ahead, just racing foward and spinning my Dharma.

Everything I do shapes everything I do. That's the weirdness. And the cure.

I have to remember that chasing cold, hard cash isn't my goal - financial serenity is. I have to remember that it's not about sublimating my fear (denial) but replacing it. I have to remember that I cannot build the future I want on envy, greed, anger, and fear - if I wanted that kind of false, house-of-cards construct I would have gone into the banking and investment industry. I have to remember that the only way out of this eternal loop is to focus on, and to truly believe in, the cure for that toxic triad - joy, generosity, calm ... and trust.

Yes, trust. Especially trust - trust that I'm on the right path, trust that I have a future at all (no matter who says I don't), and trust Mama Angel who continually tells me that somehow, somehow, everything will work out.

Because she'll always show me where the glue is.

Eventually.

Saving Time

My renovations have hit a couple of bumps - my schedule and the Congress-induced torture we call Daylight Saving.

Sunday morning was not a happy one for me. I set my bedside clock ahead an hour on Saturday night, went to bed very early, and zonked out. My alarm went off at 6. I hit it before it could wake the Big Lug, stumbled to the bathroom with my glasses askew and my eyes unfocused (it felt so early) and then to the kitchen to make coffee. When it began its restorative drip, complete with the Fragrance of the gods, I happened to glance at the microwave.

4:12, it said. Just past the fog in my head I suddenly remembered my wonderful radio was tapped into the Big Chronograph of the world - it knows when DST starts, and I'd double-dipped.

I'm wiped out.

I've never fully understood this Spring and Autumn dipsy-doodle we do with our clocks. I'm told it saves energy, but that doesn't make sense to me - the procedure has been in practice for almost a hundred years (originally Benjamin Franklin's idea, for heaven's sake). Correct me if I'm wrong, but energy wasn't really an issue back then, was it? Seriously, they wanted to save on whale oil? Coal? Tallow? The sun still rises and sets no matter what the Grandfather in the hallway says, and there's still less time between the two in the dead of winter, more in the peak of summer. And there's no proof we save anything anyway - based on personal observation, all the theoretical energy we might conserve from offices and schools is definitely squandered by millions of shivering/sweating Americans who believe they deserve their personal comfort bubble at home and in the car.

So why do we do it? Why not stay with Standard Time throughout the year? In our marvelous era of thermal chimneys and solar heating, of pushing for a greener world, why not just live with the natural rhythms instead of trying to (once again) bend nature to our collective will?

Why do we always try to fix something that isn't even broken?

I guess that's the real question haunting me today. We live in such a complicated world - most of my friends work for one governmental agency or another, and bureaucracies are the masters of reinvention for no reason. But what really got me was a call I had from my boss this morning - for some reason, the main office decided to try a new schedule thing this year, a 9 a.m. Saturday class. Now, you all know I yard sale in the spring. The old classes began at 10, which I could handle because I could get a lot in by then. But 9? Uh-uh. Even more, I'm only able to get Acid Trip here to help with the bigger stuff on Saturdays. So I warned her in December that come Spring (and only Spring) I would work later but not earlier.

Yet today she called and told me I'm "needed" for as many classes as I can cover - no one else can take the earlier classes, either, and, I suppose, I'm usually the biggest sucker.

So why did they alter the schedule in the first place? It wasn't broken, was it? Why do we as a species feel so compelled to change for change's sake?

And do I have the stones to stick to my more than ample warning and just say "no"?

I'll tell you Thursday.

Hammer Time

Don't ask me why, or even how, but I pretty much cleared the rest of ToDo, all this morning. The stairway threshhold is down, the business receipts are sorted, and both the electrician and a carbon footprint assessment are scheduled. New clients, too, and loads of graded essays are in the hopper. I even started a new book - one page only so far, and I have no idea who these people are or where they're going, but I do know they're the cherry on the cream of my Thursday sundae.

It's weird, though. I'm feeling so ... disconnected, for the entire week, as if I'm more hammer than participant - a tool for a purpose rather than a woman with an agenda or even an emotional stake, in anything I do (including the novel). I don't feel this way often, thank heaven, but when I do I've found the only cure is to keep on tapping and slamming until it blows itself out - usually with much ripping of shrubs or clearing of surfaces involved (depending on the strength of the drive). And since I will start a new list as soon as I get off this page, take a walk, too, I'm hoping that will be soon. This is (honestly) a little scary.

In the meantime, I plan to keep pounding away at whatever I can. Life is too short to keep buying into the hourly dramas, alarums, and view halloo of CNBC, the Republicans, and The Weather Channel. My world has shrunk so that I am both the only catastrophe worth worrying about and the only hero. Life is just too crazy outside these walls. Here, at least, I have some power, and here I can tap back into the flow of humanity by regaining my confidence, and my connection.

I'm more than willing to be involved, after all, even in that irritating, hypocritical, and absurd stream of finger-pointing and blame washing rampant against our psyches right now. Maybe I'll learn to report the news instead of pass gossip and speculation around like a warm potato, something which most reporters seem to have forgotten. Maybe what I learn in here - the calm place where all I am is doing - I can use to remind myself (and others) that what we see on TV is illusion, even if it's fact. Maybe, just maybe, I can still change the world.

One nail at a time.

Time Out

Ripped up the carpet on Saturday - the hallway only, since it was a bigger job than I'd planned (shock, right?) and Acid Trip was late getting here. It looks so good, though, I'm itching to finish the job by yanking up the bedroom and the stairs. Still need to put in some threshhold, at the bathroom, but I'm actually tempted to leave it duct tape, forcing me to do some work. Pictures only after it's no longer sticky.

Got a few things filed, too. Seriously, I don't know why I delay something like this, except I really hate to start a job. Always have. But now it's because I work until I finish, and sometimes that means until I drop. Somehow dropping from taxes doesn't sound as appealing as from demolition.

Kind of stuck inside, though, because of the weather, so maybe I'll get everything done, including the batch of turkey chili I'm making. Unrealistic, but possible. I taught yesterday for quite awhile (though my evening class was postponed) so I'm pretty beat. All for the good. I really can sort while brain dead - it's thinking here that's such a problem. Besides, you don't want to know where my mind goes these days. I've been watching CNBC again.

So I'll take a time out, from the economy, from remodeling, and maybe even from my To Do list, I don't know. I'll sip a cup of hot chocolate - the amazingly rich Belgian stuff I save for days just like this - and maybe read a Georgette Heyer novel, anything to pull out of this cyclone of GDP/debt chaos for which I just don't have the energy (even if I have the inclination). Today, I'll just be Contented Bunny, stare at my wonderful hardwood floor, and just ... be.

I'll try, anyway.