Measuring Up

"But how can the characters in a play guess the plot? We are not the playwright, we are not the producer, we are not even the audience. We are on the stage. To play well the scenes in which we are "on" concerns us much more than to guess about the scenes that follow it."
~C.S. Lewis "The World's Last Night"

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"So you're one of our top picks for tenants to rent the studio," the man said. He spoke slowly, so very slowly, not like my sister and I whose words sometime spill over onto each other they come out so quickly. This was my third meeting with him in as many days, and he had many good things to say, but it took him awhile to get them out. I just wanted to know the answer; whether I not I'd get to rent the cute studio on his property. But I dare not interrupt.

"When we have several good options for tenants; each having financial stability, good references, and are nice people, we then use a different way of comparing them. Others may choose their renters differently, but for us it seems the fairest way to make the best choice. We decide on a tenant by measuring their organization. "

[I thought "What? Oh no, are they wanting to see a current photo of my desk or closet? I mean I'm not so messy but I'm not a 'place for everything' person..."]

"We look at the organization of their life and how they spend their time. We look at the intention put into their schedule. "

[Organization of my life? Schedule? Do they want someone predictable? I'm screwed! I don't like schedules, and I am not prone to routine...I'm lucky if I get make-up on before I get to work, and I try not to be but I feel like I'm always five minutes late to everywhere. And has he picked up on the fact that I'm clueless about what I'll be doing or where I'll be in a year? It came out in conversation yesterday that I'd like to be out of real estate sooner than later, but as for what I'd move on to, I'd told him I had ideas but no decisions- does he think I'm a directionless flake?]

I gingerly asked, "Are you talking about someone's day-to-day schedule?"

"In a way..." he replied. "It's more about the consistent effort they are putting into the most important areas of life. If they are regular and organized and intentional about being a well-rounded and healthy person. There is one's work, time with friends and family, health, free time, etc. In our interactions and conversations with prospective tenants during the process we look for clues of their effort in all of these areas. It is so good to have balance and growth. We believe in that.

[I had no thoughts at this point really, just anticipation, and my self-doubt had started to slip away]

"You appear to keep your commitments, you're involved in many things, you like living in community, you see your friends regularly for things like the farmers' market, you go to soccer twice a week, you enjoy your job, you seem to know what you want. So, you have organization and intention in your life. More than our other top applicants. Therefore, you are at the top of our list."

I mustered something like, "That is very kind of you to say that, and its a very interesting way of looking at things." But inside I was thinking about how he'd come to this conclusion with just two 45 minute meetings with me, and that it was the kind of impression that I would have tried to leave if I'd known someone was searching for it, it was what I hoped to be seen as, but not often felt was true, especially lately. I do not consider myself an organized person in the more formal definition of the word. Lately life has felt like a game of Pick-Up Sticks, where each stick is being forcibly removed and I'm just hoping the haphazard structure doesn't fall apart. But if he wanted to define organized as being well-rounded, loyal to commitments, and intentional with people, then I wanted to be the picture next to the definition.

And for now, at least compared to the other applicants, I was. What a gift that he saw this in me.

I smiled and said quickly, before my voice could crack, "Thank you, so much. May I measure the studio? I want to see where I'll put my bed."

With that, a couple more sticks were added back carefully into my pile. I feel quite a bit more sturdy now.

Cruising

There are 7 stoplights on my way to work. They were all green for me this morning. Got to the office in record time. On a day where my to-do list is 2.7 miles long, its nice when the world does seem to be conspiring in my favor.




Life has been so busy lately... I feel like I'm back in college during those times I'd have back to back classes, meetings, work, appointments, and things to do on my own in between, and where I have to time things exactly, like my workout can be just from 5:20 to 6:05, so I can be at the next place when I said I would, etc. I am managing fine and getting most everything done in my personal and professional matters, but I can feel the drain. I am capable of strict time management, but not a lover of it. I like being busy... life feels strange when I'm not, but doing does not energize me as it does some.

For example, my friend Jon... he is currently working from about 8:30-3 every weekday in a commercial real estate office, and then between 4-5 heads off to his job at a restaurant until midnight or after. On Saturdays he works again at the restaurant. He has done this at other times in his life, and is doing it now just to get a running start financially after finishing college. I think that I literally could not do that. I don't think I would be able to make it through two days of this, and if I did, I think the most I could give at each job would be like 25%. He is looking forward to a couple month from now when "life isn't as crazy"... I am just in awe that he's living through it. Same with my friend Meg, who works like 80 hours a week during tax season, and this year studied for a CPA exam at least 15 hours a week on top of that for the last month of the season. Both of these friends have a good attitude, and whenever I've seen Meg she's been upbeat and ready for it to slow down but still able to give it her all. I would keel over after a couple days of living in her shoes as well. Mary is the same way... her life is more like mine has been lately, only that's how she goes throughout the entire year. She does more in a day than anyone I know... phone calls, appointments, exercise, pick up her daughter, drop off some furniture at a property, errands for her business and her husband's... I have never known her to spend an entire day relaxing, she is always moving, doing projects, planning, repainting some wall, etc. It's quite inspiring and intimidating at the same time.

Sometimes I think I'm just lazy compared to these people. And that may be partially true... but I've realized in the past couple years that the main difference between me and people like Jon, Meg, and Mary is that they are strongly extraverted, and I am not. They get tired from extremely long days, but the activity and the doing energizes them for more. One phone conversation will pump them up for another. The more things Mary can fit in before bedtime, the happier she is. Jon may be tired late at night but he gets a kick out of talking to and serving people. I ignore my phone a lot, talking on the phone drains me at times. Don't know that I've ever personally seen Meg or Mary ignore theirs. They don't love people any more than I do, they just get energized by the interaction.

The difference in people coming from whether they are extraverted or introverted certainly varies, and its definitely not that all extraverts are like those friends of mine or that introverts are like me. How much you like doing things as opposed to reflecting on them also has to do with whether you prefer S or N, or J or P. But the reason Jon, Meg, and Mary are like they are is greatly because the outside world energizes them.

The world takes all sorts to spin 'round... thank goodness.


(from my most trusted site...)
Extraversion and Introversion

When we talk about "extraversion" and "introversion", we are distinguishing between the two worlds in which all of us live. There is a world inside ourselves, and a world outside ourselves. When we are dealing with the world outside of ourself, we are "extraverting". When we are inside our own minds, we are "introverting".

We are extraverting when we:
Talk to other people
Listen to what someone is saying
Cook dinner, or make a cup of coffee
Work on a car

We are introverting when we:
Read a book
Think about what we want to say or do
Are aware of how we feel
Think through a problem so that we understand it

Within the context of personality typing, the important distinction is which world we live in more often. Do we define our life's direction externally or internally? Which world gives us our energy, and which do we perhaps find draining?

Comedy & Tragedy

I didn't expect to find anything of depth when I glanced over a review of the new movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" by Judd Apatow. But the article surprised me, and I had to keep reading, and then I had to cut and paste certain parts to remember, and then I felt I wanted to share them...not because I'm a big fan of Apatow's movies, but for this particular writer's (Jim Emerson) insight.

...If there's a myth we cling to in America, it's that life is arranged in stages of "personal growth," and each one leads to a higher plane of enlightenment. But Apatow seems at least somewhat ambivalent about the idea, which is why his movies [40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad] tend to end with reunions rather than the weddings or engagements that have concluded traditional comedies for centuries...

...You know what they say about the difference between comedy and tragedy -- it's all in where you choose to end the story. Apatow's films begin with something less than tragedy ("Are you living your dream?" Ben's dad asks him sarcastically in "Knocked Up") and end with something less than a love-you-forever promise...

...For Apatow's characters, relationships -- for all their satisfactions -- are often grueling work. They don't come naturally to them at all... [relationships you see at each movie's end] will be uphill and, most likely, riddled with obstacles and potholes they can't possibly anticipate until they hit 'em. That emotional open-endedness feels both satisfying and refreshingly honest...

...The problem comes down to this: The guys are pretty sure they love the girls, but feel those feelings ought to be (1) self-evident; and (2) enough. So what if they have to sneak off to play fantasy baseball, or eat Fruit Loops and wear Costco sweatpants around the house every day for a week? Who cares?
Well, the women do. They're pretty sure they love their man-child mates, too, but they also know that's absolutely not enough for them. They need the guys to change. What's more, the women need them to want to change -- to better suit their better halves. This appears to be an unresolvable lose-lose scenario, but there it is, and there's no avoiding it. (In this respect, the teenagers of "Superbad" are probably the most mature in Apatow's body of work so far: The boys and the girls really do like each other for who they are. But they're still in "like." Love, which to some is a sacred declaration of perpetual ownership, changes everything.)...

...In "Knocked Up," Pete confesses a revelation to Ben when they're high on mushrooms in Vegas: "The biggest problem in our marriage is that she wants me around. She loves me so much that she wants me around all the time. That's our biggest problem, and I can't even accept that? Like, that upsets me?"
Everybody knows what they think they're supposed to feel, but then what? If Apatow's characters "learn" anything it's not that they should have read the baby books, or that it's time to put away the action figure of the Six Million Dollar Man.

It's that choices -- any choices -- don't solve anything. Even when they're the "right" ones, living with them may be just as hard as if they'd made the "wrong" ones. But once you've made them, there's no way to know for sure.

Chopping Wood

Is there any personality type out there that does not feel refreshed from a little time in the country? Where your nearest neighbor is a quarter mile away at least... where it is so beautiful that no matter how many times you've seen this landscape, it never gets old... where the internet has never been connected... where you actually have to watch out for bears... where you chop your own firewood from the forest around you...

I know some types would be more likely to always want to live this way, others could handle it for a weekend and no more. I'm tempted to lay out my guesses right now, but maybe you could guess who might like what more on your own. But I feel like almost everyone can gain a little perspective and rest and peace from a time like I just had up in Oregon for a few days with my dad's side of the family.

*view from my Grandma's porch that is done no justice by my camera...the mountains in the distance are snow-capped.


*met these llamas on a hike past the neighbors' farm. they all stared at me the entire time i was near them. a little disconcerting.


*wandering around in some favorite forest spots with my dad and brother (who got this shot from his phone).

It's good to get away from this SB paradise and remember that it's not just the sea that pleases my eye. I think I could be happy living anywhere if I had some people to love and scenery to enjoy. But also maybe a fun cafe in which to play on my Mac. Yes, I think that's it.

Half of it is 90% mental.

The other night I hung out with Mary's daughter,Sable, for the night. She is ten. We ate pizza. Watched America's Best Dance Crew. Walked to the Carpinteria Beach Bluffs during sunset. And I taught her how to not be ticklish.

Well, she might still need some practice. But I gave her some good training, and tested it out a few times, and I think she got it. Here's how we went about it...

1) She flinches and draws back when someone looks like they are going to tickle her. She anticipates the discomfort and what her usual reaction is, and already feels ticklish before she's even been touched. I told her to practice relaxing, and just watching the person who might tickle her. They aren't yet, and so what if they do? Don't flinch until you're forced to.

2) We got her to see tickling for what it is. Just skin on skin. I "tickled" her feet and told her to focus on diminishing her instinct to kick my hand away and laugh. We conditioned her to feel a different sensation. There's no switch I was flipping to demand that she react, and she could control how she reacted if she thought about it the right way.

3) Like I touched on briefly in 1 & 2, I stressed again to her that tickling is mostly a mental game. There will be some situations where you cannot help but feel tickled, and you'll have to react if you can't get away. We both knew that. Certain people have a knack for getting you good. But look, that hand coming toward you? It's just a hand. Will it touch your side? Maybe. But you can defend yourself. Flex your muscles, that helps. But mentally relax. You'll make it through unscathed.

I kept thinking about this later. I thought about how what I told her really boiled down to...
Don't be anxious.
Put it in perspective.
Be strong, be capable, but be relaxed.

This has happened to me before... maybe to you... when you realize the advice you've just given is of the kind you could use yourself.



"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives."
-Henry David Thoreau

fresh new talent

Awhile back my mom showed me the website Googlism.com which lets you plug in a person, place, thing or time, and then collects whatever it easily finds from google connected to that item. So you get a wide range of funny, random, and sometimes inexplicably accurate phrases attached to whatever you've typed in. Sometimes the things it comes up with are actually a bit poignant. I think the things that come up for my name are pretty fun...


corinne is a very capable actress
corinne is my little angel
corinne is a quiet farming community located four miles west and one mile north of brigham city
corinne is an americana artist with an arresting voice
corinne is approximately 639
corinne is originally from montreal and has worked on hundreds of television commercials
corinne is too much like her mother
corinne is forced to realize that the real problem she must overcome is growing up
corinne is inspired by the muse
corinne is rapidly becoming one of the hottest sought after women of the next generation of australian comedians
corinne is a must hear
corinne is a board member of the french australian chamber of commerce in sydney
corinne is a jazz aficionado with an exquisite ear
corinne is puzzled with james coldness
corinne is happy that she and james would get back together again
corinne is still there
corinne is a junior journalism major at oswego state and hails from israel
corinne is always friendly and takes that extra time with us to get it just right
corinne is not in the office
corinne is a person who seems to keep herself much to herself and to start with repels james advances on her in the bedroom
corinne is 15
corinne is able to stand up on her own everywhere and she runs
corinne is forbidden by law
corinne is single and living in chicago
corinne is entirely associated with italy
corinne is demonstration of the fact that a classic style will withstand all passing fashions
corinne is his pillar of strength
corinne is a published poet
corinne is the fresh new talent out of sweden on the cool music label
corinne is primarily responsible for serving students from the colleges of business administration and arts and architecture
corinne is one of the most visible and accessible lesbian artists in the world
corinne is an intuitive
corinne is a new girl in town
corinne is looking forward to the upcoming year
corinne is my granddaughter
corinne is a magnet collector extraordinaire
corinne is a junior english major with an economics minor
corinne is dedicated to making your search for a new home a truly enjoyable experience
corinne is a 1998 magna cum laude graduate of notre dame college
corinne is a consummate world traveler who never lost her strong attachment to
corinne is a trailblazing entrepreneur
corinne is not especially patient
corinne is responsible for policy development in alberta and the nwt
corinne is the oldest of three children*
corinne is home to some fine people and fine houses
corinne is making her presence known to the family
corinne is a wholistic health practitioner
corinne is new to us this year
corinne is kind enough to drop by burrito boy to pick up our lunch on her way over to the hotel room
corinne is married to jeff and they have a married daughter
corinne is still highly regarded and sought after both professionally and by her fans


*How'd they know I was the oldest of three children? ;)

What crazy things come up for you?

Imperfect Masterpieces

"One must not always think that feeling is everything. Art is nothing without form."

* Gustave Flaubert-1846

Say that we were to continue this metaphor briefly to apply it to the "feeling" and "thinking" preferences of Myers Briggs. So, feelings are the art, thoughts are the form. Maybe some would take issue with this, but I find it helpful. I've thought a lot lately about how we make our decisions, and within the how, why? Remember that this letter preference symbolizes not how much of feeling or thinking you do, but which guides you most often when you make decisions... from everything from what you'll be eating for lunch, what you'll be doing with your tax rebate, what job you choose, to who you marry.

According to my favorite MB site, "When someone makes a decision that is based on logic and reason, they are operating in Thinking mode. When someone makes a decision that is based on their value system, or what they believe to be right, they are operating in Feeling mode." We can make decisions using just one preference or the other, but most decisions involved a combination of both. Decisions that are harder are likely because we are conflicted between our T and F sides, and in these cases, our dominant preference usually wins. Decisions made without much conflict are usually a result of being in sync with both sides.

Regardless of whether we are Ts or Fs, I believe we make our best decisions when we take all the facts into consideration, and also our knowledge of ourselves as well..."will I be okay with this choice in a month? In a year?" The more you know yourself, as well as know what your goals are personally, the easier it is to make small daily choices (should I buy this shirt or should I save my money) as well as larger scale choice.

When I was 4, my mom considered home-schooling me instead of sending me to kindergarten and then grade school. She thought about the effort it would take to coordinate it, with getting the appropriate curriculum and accountability check-ins and all, along with already having a 3 year old and one on the way. I think she did some research on effectiveness and whether it had a social impact on children who homeschooled early on. She put a lot of objective & logical Thinking into the decision. But as I recall her saying, in the end, she decided to start my education at home because it felt right. She looked at me and just felt that I would flourish in that environment and learn to love learning. And I did. She did a great job for those first couple years before I started public school, and I have benefited from it ever since, I believe.

So if our lives were painted landscapes, created as we go, they would turn out best with proportional amounts of both artistic creativity and form. What would Van Gogh's Starry Night have been without his knowledge of color and diligence in pattern? On the other hand, paint-by-numbers art is fun for children, teaching them shape and form, but there isn't as much variety and beauty in art that doesn't have the freedom of expression. Also, we are allowed mistakes; art is often more valuable when you can see the imperfections.

Our feelings aren't our only and best guide; they can be fleeting or selfish, and neither are our thoughts, as they can be based on inaccurate information or inconsiderate. We all default to one preference more often, but wisely using both and then proceeding with choices you know to be best for you and others is how we make a true work of art from our lives.