Ready for some Ridiculousness and Misrepresentation?

How a discussion about personal boundaries becomes a work issue I'll never know.

How setting personal boundaries (when asked to) and saying: "Ok, don't do the following. . .in front of me" (and you don't work together) becomes a work issue I'll never know.

What I do know:

1. Don't be stupid enough to have a personal discussion with a friend about fuzzy boundaries at any workplace no matter how casual the scene - People get confused.
2. Someone saying: "You know me, I'm open, you can talk to me" means I'll be writing this up and I'll be less than accurate (I'll lie).
3. Someone saying: "I need to talk to him about this" means: He and I will have to talk once I make this a work issue.
4. A hug and "Yes, I'm glad you told me" means: Thanks, I'll be writing this up.
5. Don't underestimate a person's defensiveness or depth of confusion no matter how plainly you speak.

Sometimes you just gotta talk through the sweaty pits

Wow, I just did something very difficult for me and I still have the wet armpits to prove it. Let me see if I can give a general idea about this without getting too specific:

There is a female friend of ours who crosses the line. Both Dave and I have felt it and we’ve discussed it more than once. I’ve never felt genuinely threatened about it but her actions when we’re together are not conscious or respectful. The last straw was that she called him while he was on a guy’s vacation in Hawaii.

To her this is simply her personality and doesn’t constitute any crossing of lines especially since she claims to have no ulterior motives and nothing other than friendly intentions. But to me and apparently to Dave, it’s weird. Being a girlfriend it brings out my claws. So instead of hatin on her I talked to her. How hard is THAT?!

Before even beginning, my armpits were sweating and I was shaking. What an awkward discussion we were about to have and what the hell do I say?! She was surprised and defensive and I tried my best to explain what I was talking about. She asked why Dave wouldn’t have said anything to her and I told her because it is a very awkward and weird discussion to have especially since they work together daily. Anyway, I let her know a woman had had a similar discussion with me years ago and after a while I understood what she was talking about, but certainly not right away.

The thing is that she says she "acts that way with everyone" so you think, it’s just how she is, it’s ok. But in fact it’s not ok with everyone. Dave and I found ourselves having a heated discussion about it the other night. We were both asking what the other could do about it. Neither one of us liked that conversation.

This is someone we've socialized with which makes it harder to say anything. And aside from this behavior, I like her. But something needed to be said. She would "never guess" that she is crossing lines and to her she is being nothing but affectionate. However, this is where the problem lies. Anyway, she admitted to being confused and needing to know what she could change. She was asking for me to spell it out for her. Part of me wanted to say, phulease, use your best judgement I know you can do it, but I spelled it out, how about start with this: don’t call him while on vacation, don’t call him Hon or Doll in front of me, and don’t touch him. After a while when we all feel better about it maybe that will change. She seemed taken aback. Hopefully if she thinks about it and after the cat fur settles she’ll get it. But I'm not holding my breath. She's old enough to know better, mid-30s, and not play naive. I do feel better having let her know but I also feel spun out from having to say those things. Yuck. Have any of you had to do something like this?

Stupid bridge move

Stupid bridge move
Originally uploaded by Claddyjack.

What's better than a weekend at a spa with your girls? Maybe a weekend with your girls wherein you are so relaxed after getting deep tissue massages that all you can do is play cards, take walks along the santa cruz coastline, go running through a eucalyptus forest together, surprise each other with gifts (jewelry and spa treatments), eat fresh fish and healthy salads then share chocolate pudding desserts, discuss the different and profound challenges each one of you face listening intently then offering comfort and perhaps a wise new perspective. Maybe it could snow at the beach. Maybe it could be so crisp that you can feel your own 3Dness and you look one way and watch the surfers on perfect waves and look the other way and see snow on the rooftops. Really, it was just magical. Magical in the way that both the scenery and the love just break your heart, you know? Like when something is so cute you want to throw up. That kind of thing.

Mother

Mother
Originally uploaded by Claddyjack.

I wanted to share this photo of my mother in the 70s, I just love it. This is the face I remember taking care of me when I was a girl. She had 4 little girls by the age of 35. As a doctor's wife (and my father has told me as much) she did most all of the raising of us. Daily she got our tantrums, fights, hurt feelings, teenage angst along with hopefully our hugs and childish charm. This woman gave me my sisters and I'm forever grateful. I'm getting nostalgic here because I'm going to our 5th annual girl's weekend in Santa Cruz and I leave this afternoon. I extended my stay in California to a week. I'm so looking forward to it.

Crash and recovery in my backyard

Bull elk in my backyard
Originally uploaded by Claddyjack.

This made frontpage news in the VailDaily. Sunday morning a bull elk was stuck in the snow. It appears he got spooked and ran down the hill pretty fast and crashed head first, antlers deep in the snow. A wildlife wrangler took hold of his antlers and pulled him out. For a very cold day and night he couldn't stand up and we thought he was dying. Then after some sunlight and a warm day I found him like this when I went home for lunch. I felt a rush of adrenaline when I saw him standing and nibbling on some twigs. Like Bob said (the owner of our cabin) "Finally a happy ending."

This was me last week. I crashed. Something blindsided me and I went down hard. But with the support of many of you and just the listening ear of my family I got up again. It really is a simple truth that with time and sunshine you can feel better. And the love of good people, thank you.

Then March came and something happened. I really don't know what, but sincere happiness just kicked in. Since March started I've been bouncing around and acting like I just ate a pound of chocolate. Here are some reasons:

1. I'm feeling the benefits of a cleansing diet I've been on now for 17 days. I was having some abdominal pain and my naturopath doctor suggested it. I've never followed something so well in my life, I really haven't strayed for a whole 17 days. Now I'm not one to deprive myself of food. I love to eat. Particularly cheese, bread, good chocolate, french fries, and crunchy salty chips, YUM. I've been off all dairy, sugar, red meat, all grains, citrus fruit, alcohol and coffee. I've upped my intake of vegetables, chicken, pork and fish, fruits and water and I make shakes with this supplemental powder full of vitamins, minerals and ingredients to promote elimination of toxins. I know I know, sounds all new-agey but really, I feel 150%. No abdominal pain that I was having randomly for months and I've got energy to burn.

2. I saw Greyboy Allstars. Believe me when I tell you if you get a chance to see these guys you will have a blast! (Julie they're coming to NYC) They each have their own side gigs. I just discovered Karl Denson's Tiny Universe (where you can hear samples of his music) and will be exahusting his stuff on my ipod. Jazz/funk does good things for the soul, people. Music has saved me more than once. Bless PJ Harvey, Emmy Lou Harris, Kim Gordon, Maria McKee, Patti Smith, Bonnie Rait to name a few - each of whom I've seen live and as artists and women continue to blow me away.

3. Speaking of women who inspire, I read this from Heather Armstrong of Dooce. I've yet to write about Heather or even get in touch with her again, but she was a friend/acquaintance of mine when I lived in L.A. We were both working at an internet start-up and if you read Dooce you know that in describing her past life in Los Angeles before Jon she constantly refers to dating a soap star (a friend of mine whom she met at one of my parties) and trying pot (I think her first time was on a roaptrip we took) and being a trainwreck. I say friend/acquaintance because after a time I was tired and a little frightened of Heather. The things she would say about people or do with little regard to others was out of line. I've been there and done that. Totally selfish because I'm all mixed up. I knew her in what I guess was her early twenties, not long after she graduated from BYU - which is what initially bonded us. I went to BYU and also used Los Angeles as the place to go wild and find my twenty-something self. I remember a time at a mutual friend's house when we were brainstorming abouting creating a site that we could all contribute to. Long before her blog. Between the three of us Heather had the most knowledge of constructing a site and said she was always good at putting something together but not good at creating the actual content. I remember her saying, almost verbatim, "I'm not creative." This couldn't be further from the truth. She's one hell of a writer. I can't tell you how much Heather has changed. I've been reading her blog here and there since before she took it offline - 4, 5 years maybe? She's inspired so many people, women and mothers espeically, around the world. Pretty awesome. This post especiallly shows what an incredible talent she is. Anyway, she inspired me again this week with a fantasticly personal and feminist post. And she is living proof that the internet could be the vehicle I was counting on - creativity is the currency of the future.

4. I am the third of four girls in my family, there are no boys. If you're as good at math as I am that means there are 5 women in the Olsen family and 1 man, my father. Every year we have a girl's weekend somewhere in California and this year we'll be in Carmel. So I'm going to California next week to see all my girls. I'll be off my cleanse so there will be wine, cheese, and conversation that will taste like sugar.

5. I'm going to this the following weekend. And, writermama has offered to be my writing buddy since she just wrote a novel while being involved with nanowrimo, so she knows all the hangups. Thank you Julie!

These are the contributing factors to my recovery after the crash. Oh, and we got sun.