You can take the girl out of BAU, but you can’t take the BAU out of the girl

Hey Y’all, sorry about the skipped week. On the bright side, I got to see about half of you that read this blog so it wasn’t really too bad!

Work:

Let’s start with the good stuff. A lot of my life lately has been work, directly and indirectly. (You will see that the “good stuff” is actually a double edged sword which created the “bad stuff”.)

Two weeks ago, an email was sent out to a list serv I subscribe to with the subject “FYI” and a flyer for a summit about innovation around women’s issues in entrepreneurialism. Cool, but wait…it was in the Key Route City!!! The day before Yom Kippur!!! “HELL TO THE FUCK YES!” I said to no one in particular. I very quickly responded to the original sender at TLoTH and asked simply if she would be attending the event and if I could join her. She responded within a half hour that no, she would not be attending but some other person had set aside some funding for my travel and I could go anyway with a manager from HR.

I was so happy I cried tears of joy. I was going to be able to spend Kol Nidre with my shul. I bought my ticket for Sunday, knowing I’d be in the city with the airport the night prior seeing Book of Mormon (it was delightfully irreverent, thank you for asking. The production was amazing and the dream scene was the best dream scene I’ve ever seen! [This includes Tevya’s dream in Fiddler] I got a t-shirt that says “Hasa Diga Ebowi” and I got PartnerPenguin boxers that say “I have maggots in my scrotum.” Listen to the soundtrack, then judge me harsher and hate yourself a little for laughing so much.). 

When I landed, PartnerPenguin took me out to a bar that was so hipster it just needed monocle. He told me that their burgers were fulfilling at a spiritual level. I was skeptical, but HOLY DAMN! That burger fulfilled me on a spiritual level. I forgot that food could be that good. There were even dark leafy greens on the side with light mustard vinaigrette, not iceberg lettuce with ranch.

Once in the Key Route City, I did the only natural Sara thing to do: I threw a party. It was a bajiggady degrees out, and a bajiggady-five in our tiny little studio. About ten of our friends braved the heat (and didn’t strip!) and hung out in our pad. It was great fun.

I slept peacefully through the whole night for the first time in a month. I slept so much while I was in the Key Route City, I think I missed some serious relationship discussions because I couldn’t get over being held and just conking out.

Monday I spent with my former colleagues at Big American University (BAU). I had many lovely conversations with folks about my life and theirs. One of my mentors made me feel so validated when she heard about my work strives and responded with:

“That the thing I absolutely love about the students at this university. You are change makers. If you see something that needs changing, you do it. You don’t wait for a solution to come to you.”

I really needed to hear that. I needed to see people. To be around those who care, and especially those who accept me for who I am without demanding I change. I crave radical acceptance because it is so sparse on TLoTH. Special shout out to those whom I felt comfortable enough to cry in front of, I haven’t felt safe enough to do that in a while.

Tuesday I went to the conference. The best aspect of that event was hearing other people speak words I only barely dare think. A new role-model stated:

“We have been throwing the solution de-jour at institutions for thirty years to improve the situation of women, in general and in STEM. It’s not working. It is high time that managers are accountable and responsible, directly and measurably, for diversity progress in their companies.”

I asked a very direct and tenacious question to the keynote speaker. I was very proud of myself for asking and I am working on crafting a follow up email since she was not able to satisfactorily answer my question.

Religion

I spent the evening and last dinner before Yom Kippur with my Saba. We had some heavy-duty discussions about the differences between 70’s feminism and 90’s feminism. He was deeply proud of my TEDx talk and his confidence in me makes me feel like I can affect real change.

PartnerPenguin and in I then deftly maneuvered public transportation to make it to Kol Nidre with exactly 2 minutes to spare. Though I didn’t get to talk to many people, I got to feel their presence: so very sincere. I would like to share with you an excerpt from the prayer book, it’s not too God-y, so just bear with me.

Tshuva

I’m not ready to return.

The calendar says now;

I say—April, maybe June.

I have so much to do.

The weekly email says now;

I’m so not ready, so preoccupied, too distracted

But

the congregation has assembled

in this room.

And the weight

of our collective presence

 has gravity enough

 to bend time’s hand towards

me

and say “Now.”

And bent, on bended knees

I reply, “Yes. I am ready.”

Everyone sang from their souls, the musicians played from their hearts and the clergy spoke words of laughter, sorrow and truth. Even the request for donations at the end made me cry. It was a perfect, lovely service. One thing that was unique to this type of service was that talking was discouraged at the end. I went around hugging people who were so surprised and happy to see me. In some ways, it felt appropriate that I hugged them in silence and wished them quietly that they have a healthy and happy new year.

Yom Kippur day was spent with PartnerPenguin and I doing us stuff. I had to leave around 1 pm. I had a horrible trip back to TLoTH but that’s not worth writing about.

*  *  *  *

Now, the “bad stuff” from Work.

I don’t really need to go into details, but basically I have been the butt of at least one rumor mill and several accusations of insubordination in the past couple weeks. Being very confused what I did wrong, I have been trying to figure it out. Momma Bear was the person who put it all together for me: I have been treating myself like an adult, an equal, in several work situations. I have been contacting people who are higher up than me, I have been arranging meetings with scientists, I have been an active participant in discussions about what my daily activities should be. I do not always make my whereabouts easily known. (Though I blame the last bit on my former boss and PartnerPenguin because they taught me how to disappear.)

This breaks many unspoken rules of corporate culture.

I feel so very caught. On one side, I am being expected to be responsible for my actions. On the other, I am being punished for being an adult and holding people to reasonable standards, especially in the field of communication. I am too American, I am too direct, I am too brash and instigating.

I have been trying to improve, based on what people critiqued from last week. But today at work I was given several contradictory instructions by authority figures and I just gave up and curled into a ball and cried. My co-worker overheard the conversation (she very astutely did not join) and agreed that I was being asked to do things directly in contrast to other people’s requests.

Corporate culture is so very weird. And saddening and frustrating.

Active Hobbies

Haha. Jk. I didn’t do anything physical this week. I walked a bunch. I sweat a lot because it’s warm out. So there.

Creative Hobbies

The play I did makeup for closed this weekend. I got this beautiful flower as a souvenir.

I was proud of my final make-ups. By the end of the show I had done every cast member except one, who did her own. I made some pretty cool friends and I’m going to give someone a simple lesson in Hebrew. The stage manager talked me (I was already toying with the idea) of submitting a play to direct for the March show. We’ll see. It’s a good experiment. I’ve never directed and it would be a very difficult play. Wheeeeeeeeeee! Challenge accepted.

Living situations

My friend, The Mexican, has come to stay with me for a little while. He got a job at TLoTH for a year too so I said he could stay with me until he finds a place. So far, so good. Except that he bought two jars of cookie-butter so I might have to invest in larger pants. It feels good to have someone from Big American University here. I feel able to be myself.

Tonight’s musical guest will be Mr. Ray Charles in the best movie in the world: The Blues Brothers. C’mon, it’s time to Shake a Tail Feather!! (Link if the video doesn't work)

Car Drama

In case you’ve been reading on my bloghost site, I forgot to mention that I wrote a whole week’s blog and then chickened out about posting it publicly. If you’re interested in reading the “missing” post, please contact me privately.

So here we are again. I’m sitting alone on my couch in my underwear eating “Gin-Gins” and you are sitting at your email wondering why I just shared that. It’s ok, I’m wondering that too.

PartnerPenguin has gone and returned to the Key Route City in search of a job. I’m back to trying to figure out how to life. On one hand, it’s nice that it’s quite again. My life seems to consist of bulimic fits of adventure followed by lulls of filling up the emptiness with new exercise regimes. My prediction is that the next phase is going to involve some lackluster weight lifting at TLoTH’s gym and maybe getting up the courage to bike again. I’m also thinking of Roller Derby but since my family banned me from playing rugby, I feel like that probably holds true for all contact sports. Pro tip: don’t play a match with a concussion, and especially don’t hide the fact that you have a concussion from your coach.

So speaking of more recent decisions that weren’t informed by concussed 15 year olds… I wanted to tell you all about my car. Her name is Mabel. If I decide to get one of those stupid VW “bra” things, she is going to look like this:

In my previous relegation, I described in gruesome detail how White Car got to be a fucked-to-death-pile-of-caa-caa. I wanted to touch base on what’s happened since then because I think it’s absolutely ridiculous and I’m interested to hear what people think, especially if they’ve been in similar situations.

Shortly after White Car got totaled, Partner Penguin got back to the Hill and helped me decide how to move forward. Our research suggested going to a local credit union would be our best option. Great. I got a pre-approval for a loan and then we borrowed cars from friends until we found Mabel, at a dealership 90 miles away. We deliberated most of the terms of the agreement and made the salesman miss the fight. Contracts were signed, keys were handed over and PartnerPenguin and I drove off into the night.

A major motivator of getting a car so quickly was that Niece #1 was coming to visit us for a week. (She was kind enough to recap our adventures last week!)  Let’s call Week 1 the week of August 2 (Sunday). Niece #1/PHX visit happened starting Thursday, Week 2. It is now week 4. So this is how it went.

Week 1: Purchase car with pre-approval letter. There are stipulations about year manufactured and how much will be covered. Pre-approval letter specifically DOES NOT define anything about mileage, or what constitutes as a change in offer based on mileage.

Friday, Week 1: Loan officer calls and I don’t pick up because I work in a concrete box for a living. By the time I see her call, the bank is closed, I figure she was just calling to check up on the purchase.

Monday, Week 2 (t-4 days to travelling): Loan officer calls cell phone again as well as work phone. I call her back. She tells me that my loan has been denied because the mileage of the car is absurdly high. I bought the car with 124,000 miles. Honestly, this was the lowest mileage I saw anywhere. She berates me a bit about how could I possibly think of buying something with such high mileage and then we hang up. 

At this point, I take a good hard look at my life and decide if having a car is worth it. I draw up pros and cons lists and decide that it’s a blessing in disguise and I could probably get my money back and be able to see my shul family for High Holy Days instead. We could get a rental car for traveling and borrow a friend’s car for Niece #1’s visit. I’m sad about the loss of such a big item, but I know I’ll get over it.

Tuesday, Week 2: I procrastinate/try to work and not think about the car. During lunch, PartnerPenguin and I read through all of the contracts to determine what our timeline is. We find out we only have 48 hours from learning about financing falling through to return the car. Did I mention the dealership is 90 miles away? And this is during lunch?

Early afternoon I call the dealership. I will be in that town the next day and I want to know how strict they are about this kind of thing. I talk with a man in finance and ask him whether I need to return the car today or whether I can return it tomorrow. He says he does not know what I’m talking about, the car is financed and all of the registration fees and such have been paid. I’m like…uh, what?! The bank declined my loan and they told me this less than 48 hours ago so I would like to return the car please.

This is the part that pissed me off the most.

The dealership went to a different credit union. They did not ask my permission. They did not have my consent. They told a completely different bank that I was going to pay them a bajiggady thousand dollars for the next blah amount of years. On top of that, the second bank had to do a hard pull on my credit, which is not excellent for me. If I return the car at this point, I would have to return it to Bank 2 and have a repo on my record.

I’ve had mixed responses to this action by the dealership. Some people have told me I am over-reacting; I would just send a check to some unknown place either way. The finance guy didn’t even think there was a problem at all; I wanted the car after all, didn’t I? Some people have agreed with me that this was a completely shoddy business practice.

Week 2 ended, as you read about in PHX with lots of crazy-fun adventures. Week 3 was great fun with Niece #1. We went to my favorite hike, played fun word-games with friends and went to the local hot springs.

It was not until this week, Week 4, that I got ANY correspondence from Bank 2 about my loan. It didn’t even have a loan contract in the envelope, just general bank account information. I still don’t have the exact information about the company I’m expected to pay a significant amount of money to for the next few years.

I keep vacillating between pissed and exhausted. I finished this masterpiece yesterday.

I’m proud that I finished something, but I feel insufficient. I feel like now that I owe Real Money to Real Invisible Entities: I am an adult. I hate feeling like that. I hate that fuckwads in managerial positions can alter the course of my financial life without consent. I hate feeling like a pawn. I hate getting talked down to by the clerk at the store because I want to return an item because I need the money more than the item.

I do appreciate the fact that I can cope with these things and that they are helping me move forward with my adult life, not hindering me from living it. I was recently compared to a woman with two kids who works two jobs and is barely scraping by. The person comparing us said even though I’m “broke” I don’t have it as bad as her. This is true, in a way. But I felt frustrated by this comparison for two reasons. I am in my current position because I chose to go along a path of education and made a mutual agreement with my partner that we wouldn’t have kids until we both felt more ready to deal with that responsibility.

The second reason this frustrated me is that it completely invalidates my problems as a reality. The minute you take away someone’s reality as valid, it makes her or his entire existence less valid. People do this to each other, even to loved ones, all the time. I am working along my path and you are working along yours. Lived experiences are parallel and don’t ever touch.

I hope next time someone says something along these lines; I can get to this latter point faster and actually tell them they are invalidating me. I wonder what that would feel like.

To close out, I would like to present two totally different songs. The first is deeply spiritual and found me from out of the blue. It affected the depths of my soul and I hope you find some meaning in it too.

Niece #1 shared the second song. It sums up EXACTLY what it feels like to learn a second language, in my opinion. I’m looking at you, French class in college.