KymPossible's Mission Journal

In late December 2009...

I don't want to look back at my year and say 'wow, I sure wasted a lot of time on the internet'.  So I'm Twittering and Facebooking less, and probably won't be on IM as much either.  I'll still blog from time to time, it's not like I'm abandoning all internet communication, I'm just making an effort to throttle back.  The internet is a weird way to feel connected with people you aren't actually spending time with, it is a false connection in some ways that can leave you feeling empty.  So why not invest time in actually doing things with people IRL?  And when I can't go out (like kid weeks) and I don't have friends who are interested/available in coming to hang out at Mission HQ, that is a great time to read, paint, knit, game, or do things to improve my home.  Or work.  Yeah, I'm still doing a lot of that at night and on weekends too. 

Since deciding this, I have spent some great quality time with the kids, invested a few hours into refreshing my household budget for 2009, worked, devoured the short book This Is For You by Rob Ryan (a Valentines gift from a dear friend), and started reading Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips.  I love reading, and haven't done nearly as much as I would like in the last several years.  At first choosing a book from my very large collection of Things I Bought But Haven't Read Yet was intimidating.  The last book I read was Farenheit 451 and it made such a deep and profound effect on me, I figured anything I chose would be disappointing by comparison.  Given how out of practice I am at leisure reading, I decided to start with popular fiction that I know a friend is also reading.

The premise of Gods Behaving Badly is that 12 Greek gods are still on earth and living in a townhouse in London.  Artemis is a dog walker.  Apollo is a TV psychic.  Aphrodite is a phone sex operator.  Dionysus is a DJ.  Eros has become a Christian.  And being immortal but no longer worshipped, they are bored, unhappy, and losing their powers.  The first night I picked up the book I read through chapter 12.  The final page of chapter 12 said something that struck me deeply, and reminded me of why I loved F451.

 

"If you knew you only had a hundred years to live," he said eventually, "what would you do with the time you had left?"

-Eros to Artemis

 

An excellent question that underlies many of my favorite movies too (American Beauty, Stranger Than Fiction).  If you aren't happy now, what are you waiting for?  Life is finite, and no one knows how much time they have left, so figure out what makes you happy and go do that.

It surprised me that this first seemingly trivial book I choose to read reminds me of my goals for 2008, to live deliberately, that every day I wake up I have within myself the potential to do anything, and the future holds untold opportunities.  I do not want to drift through life, don't want to make my decisions based on comfort of the known/present or on fear of the unknown/future.  I don't want to live my life based on what other people or society think I should want or do, but go out and experience everything the world has to offer.  So I guess it isn't such a bad book to start with after all, because it reminded me of this and reinforced the decision to adjust where I have been spending my time of late  (sorry Tweeps).

 

And then, the very next night, a friend had the following message on his IM:

"no matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back"

 

I'm not a spiritual person, I don't believe in 'signs', I think people see what they want to see most of the time.  Maybe I'm looking for inspiration or validation that my life philosophy isn't totally naive and crazy.  I don't know.  I just know that I had a challenging winter and am feeling more like my usual self again, filling my life with hope for a future full of joy and happiness, rich new experiences and rewarding interactions with the world around me.  I'm feeding my soul with music and books, and trying to focus on the limitless potential of the wide open future.  I know there will be sadness and hurt, that is inevitable and part of life.  And that's okay.  I'm not so Suzy Sunshine as to think that life will ever be 100% perfect 24/7.  I still choose to look for the good each day.  Just trying to stack the Self Fulfilling Prophesy deck in my favor.

 

Singing Valentines

One of my former colleagues is changing teams, so his 'old' team sent him a Singing Valentine in a team meeting this morning to wish him well.  And they asked me to be part of it, which was really sweet.  I participated in Singing Valentines several years ago, but once I had kids I couldn't make it to the evening rehearsals anymore.  This year I would have signed up, but I thought I was going to be out of town this week.  So it was nice of this quartet to let me sub for their alto on this one delivery.

I go way out of key about a minute into the video for probably 5 or 6 seconds, but hey, I only started rehearsing yesterday and practiced the song 2 whole times with the quartet before we went to deliver.  A little slack please.

 

Valentine_HQ

Singing Valentines cost $25 donated to a charity of your choice through our corporate giving site, and include chocolates, a balloon, a flower, and a hand made card.

 

I HATE USAIR

or, why my week got off to a shitty start...

 

I was stranded in Philadelphia Monday night because I missed my connection to Seattle.

• I missed my connection because we sat in the plane on the tarmac for an hour in DC.
• We sat on the tarmac in DC because the FAA grounded all flights not already in the air to Philadelphia until PHL moved some planes off the ground – their traffic was all backed up.
• My DCAàPHL flight finally left an hour late but I took off my shoes and RAN through the airport to my gate as if a pack of rabid rottweilers were chasing me and would have made the connection but:
• My arrival gate was changed from the A terminal to the F terminal so I had to take a shuttle bus between terminals AND
• In DCA they forced me to gate check my carry on luggage, so I had to wait for that to come off the plane on arrival at PHL AND
• The gate agent is a mean, mean woman who closed the door even though she saw me running full speed towards her gasping ‘please… please don’t close the door…’

 

Now I've been unhappy with airlines in the past, but never before have I had an airline show so little empathy or concern that they had just completely fucked my travel up.  The attitude was totally 'we don't care' or 'not my fucking problem'.  They wouldn't give me hotel or meal vouchers because 'it isn't our fault, it was the FAA'.  And the killer irony was that Tuesday morning my flight to PHX was oversold and they were offering free travel vouchers to volunteers willing to take the next flight 90 minutes later.  I don't get dick for being stuck in the airport 13 hours and getting home a full 16.5 hours later than I was supposed to, but if I could just wait another 2 hours, they'd give me free domestic US tickets.

 

I wish my flight had been 10 or 15 minutes later arriving in PHL so I wouldn't have had any hope and wouldn't have run to try and catch the flight.      

 

 

 

ShmooCon 09

I leave for DC soon!