eyeball update

Posted January 23rd, 2006 by Michelle

I had my second of three eye appointments last week in preparation for possibly getting LASIK. I noticed that Mr. Mildly Handsome, my eye doctor, doesn’t smile much. But he did say that my eyes looked great, very healthy from not wearing contacts, and unchanged in any way since our last meeting that would affect my candidacy for surgery. BUT… I had to keep my glasses on and my contacts off, in preparation for tomorrow’s appointment down in Berkeley. This is the big one- a solid hour of testing, including the thickness of my cornea and other appetizing readings. It’s an unfotunate hour away, but depending on the results of this round of tests, I’ll finally be approved (or not) for the surgery. They have three different doctors, who specialize in different types of eyes, and who have varied schedules. So first they will determine if I can get the surgery, then which doctor should do it, and then, if all’s well, we’ll schedule the surgery. All this could happen tomorrow.

I’m really nervous about the surgery, but like anything I put my mind to, the decision has been made and I’ll go forward with it. I’m also not thrilled about the debt it will generate, but somehow I’m totally convinced it’s worth it.

However, they best have availability VERY SOON for the procedure because I think something very, very bad might happen if I have to wear these *#^#$)*%)$ glasses one more day. And of course, you have to be out of contacts for what feels roughly like a lifetime before the surgery, and I’ve lived that lifetime, and I’m THROUGH. If the surgery happens, and it is successful, I am going to have a ritual burning of these lenses.

I’ve felt a strange sort of exhaustion all day, coupled with total distractibility. Are those symptoms of something, or just tiredness and distractedness? And am I making up words? It’s odd- my life has been so full of late, and I guess I’m rather accustomed to at least a little bit of emptiness, and even, maybe, I’m fond of that little bit of emptiness. I’m craving it right now, wanting to almost physically push everyone away from me for just a day so I can breathe and think. Maybe I’ll take myself to the coast this weekend, or something, just to get away. Particularly if I’m going to have my eyeballs sliced open shortly thereafter. Cross your fingers for me, cyber-world, in hopes that my cornea is thick enough.

ass umptions

Posted January 20th, 2006 by Michelle

Sometimes I don’t blog because there is just too much I want to write about. This is what one of my colleagues calls “champagne problems”, as in, the kind of problems you want. I write so much so often on so many deadlines these days that the muscle is strong and flexible and ready at a moment’s notice. Of course, sometimes I worry about the quality versus the quantity, but still – this is a problem I want.

So do I write about the date I went on with the nutty leftist extremist two nights ago? Or the black tie event I attended tonight where my boss and his wife and I talked smack all night? Or my ongoing realizations as to what happens when I am unapologetic about who I am?

I choose door number one. Because once upon a time, I had a laundry list of what I wanted in a man. It was long, detailed, and there were a number of non-negotiables, one of which was politics. And while being with someone whose politics are aligned with mine is still important to me, I’m realizing that arbitrary decisions (like, the one I made about never having sex with someone who voted for Bush) just don’t always work. It always makes me sad how religion can separate people, but I’m realizing how extremism in any form has the same effect. So I went on this date with someone whose politics were completely in line with mine, but I couldn’t bear his assumption that that was the case. We’re not even into the first drink and he’s ranting about how “petrol” is the greatest evil, except for maybe being “slave to the dollar” was the greatest evil, and on and on about his “love of the earth” affects all of his choices, and how “weed makes the world a better place” and on and on and on- I’m really not doing it justice, but my brother Sean would have HATED him because he’s one of those liberals who lack nuance or reason, and Sean hates those folks more than just about anyone. I mean, he was largely right on, but what if I had been a moderate or a conservative? How dare he assume that a) I’d have the same views as him and b) that politics was ALL I wanted to talk about?

He also lacked curiosity. In two hours, he might have asked two questions, both based on information that I managed to slip in while he was talking about backpacking through South America. I mean, once upon a time, this guy might have been someone who would have lit my fire, and instead, it was all I could do to try to find a gracious way to leave. I’m very busy, I love my friends who I’d sacrificed seeing to get a drink with this guy, and I wanted OUT.

But instead of fleeing, I pushed back. I went outside, took a deep breath, went back into the bar, and asked him why he would assume that I share his politics. I told him he seemed very extreme in his views, and that I thought that was dangerous because you cannot have a rational conversation with someone when your panties are always in a bunch. (I should know- I’m the one who is usually retarded about politics.) I told him that more than ever, it was important to be curious, important to listen, important not to be so damn divisive because no one on either extreme side is ever going to listen to each other, and that is bad. I told him I agreed with most of what he said, but that his delivery was dangerous and based on assumptions.

And it was if no one had ever said these things to him before. He was fascinated. (Cue Michelle inwarding rolling eyes so hard they hurt.) I’m not going to meet him again, because I don’t have the time or energy to fight this particular battle, and even a friendship with him would be exhausting. Also, even going on this date was perfunctory, done because I thought I should, not because I was excited about it. But it reminds me how rarely people really talk to each other, really listen, really take the time to challenge and question.

Then, tonight, I poured myself into an extemely tight dress and went to a black-tie function. I don’t know which night was less fun.

this and that

Posted January 16th, 2006 by Michelle

I spent a wonderful day with my friend Rachel today, a perfect way to cap off a rather extraordinary weekend. I really think I’d be more productive if all weekends lasted three days. Or, I’ll tell myself that, and keep pining for such a shift to happen.

We wandered around the town of Albany, which is right next to Berkeley, and then we headed into the city and didn’t even get too terribly lost. We decided we needed two things: fish and chips, and to see the sea lions, so we went to the uber-touristy Fisherman’s Wharf.

this pic taken immediately after fish, chips, beer, and clam chowder… oy…

and then off to see the sea lions and the city at dusk.

It was a peaceful, most excellent day, even though we spent a great deal of our time together discussing all the various complications in our lives. Nothing, really, in my life, is set in stone, nothing is certain, and while I suppose it’s been that way always, I think I’m starting to become more aware of it, and perhaps more curious as to what it means. And why I’ve chosen it to be that way. And wondering if I want it to change.

But anyway, back to Lucy! I’ve not written about the delights of the time I spent in her company over the holidays, mostly because just thinking about her makes my whole chest ache with longing to be near her. She’s really tightly bonded to Tessa right now- reluctant to have anyone else take her for any extended period of time, and it’s amazing how aware she is. If we tried to distract her with toys or spoons or even our own silly faces, she’d smile and play along but only as long as mom was within eyesight. Perhaps the greatest gift I got this Christmas, though, was Lucy’s willingness to spend time with me. I got to feed her Christmas eve, right before the big family dinner, and the mere trust she had that when she opened her mouth, I’d be there with some tasty green glop, and if she looked to my face, I’d be there to smile and kiss her, was about all I needed for it to be a terrific holiday.

the things on my mind…

Posted January 13th, 2006 by Michelle

There were rooms of forgiveness
In the house that we shared
But the space has been emptied
of whatever was there

There were cupboards of patience
There were shelfloads of care
But whoever came calling
Found nobody there.

After today
Consider Me Gone

In lieu of the things on my mind, I quote Mr. Gordon Matthew Sumner, who recently found his way back to me.

And a few pics:

My dad in the AWESOME smoking jacket that my sister Melissa gave him for xmas…

And yours truly, the librarian (these are for you, Warrior):

(Note no toothy smiles. Because I HATE wearing glasses. This last one was taken at work when I was dreaming of drinking beer in the sunshine, rather than, you know, working for a living)

Nightmares

Posted January 11th, 2006 by Michelle

Last night I dreamt I was waiting tables again. It was the “Server’s Nightmare”, not unlike the Actor’s Nightmare, which every actor has actually had (and, of course, there’s a play about it as well). In the Actor’s Nightmare, the actor suddenly finds himself onstage, in the middle of play, but he doesn’t know any of his lines, and doesn’t even know what play he’s in. In the Server Nightmare (any many of us have had this one too), suddenly, you are on the floor, in the middle of service, but you don’t know which tables are yours, you don’t know what course anyone is on, you don’t know what’s supposed to be happening, but there are hundreds of people clamoring for you and you can’t escape. That was my dream last night, except it was all the worse because I was me now but I was back to waiting tables. It was horrible.

And then today, my mom got in a really bad car accident. In real life. She’s totally fine, the car is totally totaled, and I just feel so incredibly far away.

I feel torn and scared about many things in my life. I mean, I’m thankful that I have these sets of problems, versus sets of problems I’ve had in the past and I’m sure I’ll have in the future, but it’s still scary. Although I have to say I do feel extremely present, extremely aware, extremely- if you’ll forgive me- alive. But my heart has been racing for what feels like days now and I can’t seem to slow it down, because things keep coming my way to make it go nuts.

You know, it’s crazy. I’m sitting here thinking about everything I’m feeling and I realize it’s growing pains. Twice in the past couple of months, I’ve begged certain people to stop telling me about the things they care about, because I felt like I couldn’t care deeply about one more thing. I care so much about my family, about my close friends, about my coaches, about my organization, about the arts in my community, about the new foster care center and all the kids I’m working with there, about the state of this country, about the victims of all of last year’s disasters, you know, blah blah blah, and it seems like the more you care about things, the more you realize there is to care about. And it’s like I don’t know how to control it, I don’t know how to pick my battles. Or I don’t know how to graduate my care, assign it levels, at least when it comes to the amount of time I spend on any thing in a given day. And twice, when someone started to tell me about YET ANOTHER THING that I was clearly going to care about, my heart started racing and I begged them to stop. Because I honestly thought my heart would burst, in a totally bad way.

But then, if I sort of give myself time, I find that my heart didn’t burst, it stretched just a little bit. Ye gods, crucify me for this silliness if you must, but it’s like I’m able to internalize that one more thing just a tiny bit, without getting totally overwrought, and I find that I can care about all sorts of things, I just can’t *do* something about every single one of them.

Boy howdy, am I glad it’s a three-day weekend coming up. In the meantime, it’s 8:30, and I’m going to go to bed.

My Journey to LASIK

Posted January 10th, 2006 by Michelle

About a month ago, I figured out that I can’t really save the world if I have to stop and clean my contacts, so I’ve decided to swallow my fears (and a fair amount of debt) in order to get eye surgery. It’s all still pretty confusing to me how it works- I mean, I understand that they cut a flap of my eyeball and then squirrel around in there and then replace the flap, or somesuch other ridiculous thing- but if it means I don’t ever have to buy contacts again (or at least not for a decade or so), if it means I don’t have to put a small plastic disk onto my eyeball just to function every single day, the it’s worth it.

The first misconception about LASIK is that it’s become cheap. WRONG. There are hacks up and down the country willing to do it for about $500 an eye, but do you want a hack near your eyeball with a laser? Nope, not me. I’m going to the highest-rated doctor in the Bay Area, someone who has successfully sliced the eyeballs of three different people I know. The cost? Just under $5000. I don’t know if that really works out- I doubt I’d spend that much money in the next ten years on eye exams and contacts, but maybe. And considering the events I’ve missed, the hours lost, because of a dropped contact or the lodging of a plank between my contact and eyeball, it is well worth it. And as I said, I can’t save the world if I have to stop to buy saline solution. So LASIK it is.

I had my first doctor appointment before the holidays. The doctor I’m seeing for the first two appointments is the referring doctor, not the slicer, but he also came highly recommended. He’s young, mildly handsome, very well coiffed, and minced no words. He turned down the lights, handed me the thing shaped like a flat ice cream scoop and asked me to put it over my left eye. Even with my contacts in, I could barely make out the top line on the wall. Next, the scoop went over my right eye, and then I was lost. Even so, he said that he was stunned that I could see as well as I did, considering a) the amount of guck on my contacts (gross!) and b) how massively misshapen my left eye is (oh, astigmatism, how delightful thou art not). I asked him if I needed a new contact prescription, and he said no, that I was seeing as well with these as I could see with anything else.

Then he popped out my contacts, and the quiet terror set in. I can’t stand being blind, even if it’s to sit and talk to a doctor for fifteen minutes. He spent a fair amount of time running all the usual tests (including putting that yellow crud into my eyes to check for various problems). At the end, he told me I was the candidate (because of the size of my pupils) for the most advanced type of LASIK. It doesn’t cost any more, but apparently they shoot about a billion fragments of light into your eyes, which is measured by a laser, which makes the surgery even more precise.

Finally, we were almost done when he dropped the bomb. “Now, before your next appointment, you’ll need to take out your contacts and leave them out for three weeks. You have a good pair of glasses, don’t you?” I think the horror on my face was crystal clear, because he backed up and said, “Okay, how about two weeks? We can’t go any further until we test your eyes again, and we can’t test your eyes until you’ve not worn contacts for at least two weeks.” I told him I’d see him two weeks after New Years, that there was no way in bloody hell I was going to wear glasses on my vacation.

So here I am, one week into wearing my glasses. And I’m utterly miserable. I hate that there is this thing, hanging on my face, this metal contraption that makes me feel all walleyed. I hate that I have no peripheral vision. I feel like I can’t really see people, that I can’t really connect- how could I? There’s a metal thing on my face! And to be honest, it makes me feel shy, and odd. I’m scared I’ll step on them, but at the same time, I want to jump up and down on them, smashing them to pieces. I don’t feel like myself. A friend, trying to console me, told me I look like a hot librarian. But I don’t want to look like a hot librarian, I want to look (and more importantly, FEEL) like me, which I don’t. It’s strange how strongly I’m reacting to these glasses.

My next appointment is a week from today, where Mr. Mildly Handsome will dilate my eyes, and where I’ll finally be able to reinsert the dreaded plastic discs one more time. And, if all goes well, I’ll be able to set the date for my pre-surgery exam down in Berkeley, where the slicing will take place.

And yes, I’m terrified of the complications, and uncomfortable with the debt, but it is still 100% worth it. Just to be able to wake up, and see. And to be able to save the world.

merci

Posted January 9th, 2006 by Michelle

Sometimes I’ll be sitting in a room, and I’ll look around, and I’ll be struck by how beautiful everyone is around me. This doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s intense, and wonderful, and warm. It’s one of the few times that I actually relax, that I actually let go, because somehow I’m able to include myself in that feeling- if everyone here is beautiful and good, I must be beautiful and good!- and it is a profound and delightful feeling.

Today, at work, I was walking to my car, thinking about a number of things- a voicemail I got today, the dinner I had last night, an evening I had a couple of weeks ago, and I suddenly felt that way about every man in my life. I had a rare and gorgeous moment of loving, loving, loving every man I know. Everyone from my boss, who is so committed to me, to my dad, who left me the sweetest voicemail about my work with the Red Cross, to my brothers, who were each separately awesome over Christmas, to the man I had dinner with last night, to the man I talked with yesterday, to my dear friend Jon who made me laugh so hard during our Holiday dinner, to Matt who loves Elizabeth so much- all of you absolutely gorgeous men. I haven’t always had good men in my life, and it is so nice, so refreshing, so exhilarating to look around and feel love.

So this short little blog goes out to all of you- all of you who took time this last week, however little time, in however ways large and small- to let me know that I matter to you. I’ve made a lifetime of making a lot happen with very little, but this week, you have all filled me. Thank you.

or do I sing like a bird released

Posted January 5th, 2006 by Michelle

When I was thirteen, I could make it rain. When I was that age, thirteen, and fourteen, I could wish things into being, and I did so, all the time. It was always temporary, but I swear to you, anything I wanted, I had, even if just for an hour or a day or a week. I actually remember it scaring me. I could make it rain. Or so I believed with such a conviction that it didn’t matter if it was true or not.

Do you ever need to type so badly that you go cut your nails so your fingers can fly more easily? I had to do this, just a week or so ago, to write to a friend about his music, and I find I already need to do it again.

So anyway, I could make it rain. And then for years and years and years, I couldn’t. God, I pined to, and pined for so many other things- really awful men, really bad shows, one or two good men, one or two good shows, events, happenings- and rain. And sometimes things came my way, sometimes it rained, but it never felt connected to me and so I always felt so powerless. I remember when I was living in Kansas City with the Nightmare Ex-Boyfriend, who used to get off work at 4 AM, go do various drugs, come home at 7 or 8 (or noon or not at all) and insist that the house be quiet while he slept, and I put up with it. There may be no worse feeling in the world than knowing you are being a schmuck and being a schmuck anyway.

But tonight I had an experiece- and it may sound banal, as the night was nothing but a dinner- that reminded me, so strongly, of how I used to make it rain. (Actually, it reminded me of the night when I was 13 that a 17-year-old guy and I tried to sneak in to see Modern English at a bar in New Jersey, and when I got turned away {which didn’t happen often to me in those days, due to my ample bosom and shamelessness} we went to go see the movie “Legal Eagles” in Morristown, and ran into an old boyfriend. But that’s another story.) So I’m sitting at this dinner table with people in my profession from all across California, people who do my job in other agencies, people twenty, thirty years my senior. And listening to their stories, listening to the state of their agencies (all of us suffered the same budget cuts three years ago), I finally realized what I have accomplished here. The parts of my agency that I feel are fledgling were miraculous to my peers. The initiatives they thought they needed to begin are already on the table in mine. The vast majority of them have gone all-volunteer; I doubled the budget of my organization in one year. Most of all, I KNEW WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT. I had concrete ideas, thoughts, concerns, and suggestions. I had answers. Yes, there were those there whose agencies far surpass mine, whose experience is far deeper, but to use an analogy I hate, if the boys and men were separated at that table, I know on which side I’d fall.

And, for once, it didn’t matter that the host insisted on paying for my dinner because he thought I was hot. It didn’t matter to me how I got there, or that I didn’t have any of the same education as everyone else, it didn’t matter that I was younger and less experienced, it didn’t matter that I spent a fair amount of the dinner being “on” instead of being “real”. It didn’t matter that I haven’t accomplished nearly everything that I want to. Because the realness of the situation is I fucking made it rain.

I don’t know what is going to happen. My organization may shut down next month, but in the scope of things, it doesn’t matter, because I remember now what it feels like to be so… powerful. I know I do things differently now than I did at thirteen- and thank ye gods for that- but it’s significant to me that all that time ago, I knew I could CHANGE things if only I was given the opportunity.

I swear to all that’s holy that driving home from dinner, if I had been in a convertible, I might have sprouted wings and sailed out of my car. I know this feeling is fleeting, this feeling of abso-forking-infinite possibility, so I am going to cherish the crap out of it while it’s here.

a wish or two

Posted December 29th, 2005 by Michelle

It’s a strange sensation, moving in waves to yet another transition period in my life. I don’t know why it takes a prolonged time away from my day-to-day to gain perspective, but it does- a weekend away, or even a week away doesn’t do it. There is something about two weeks, though, that allows me to open up and breathe and really think things through, while also letting them go at the same time.

The last time I was away for two weeks, I was down on the Gulf Coast living with Red Cross volunteers. This time, I’m in New York, living with my family. And the turning point, the relaxing moment in the center of my chest, really only happened about five minutes ago. But without that moment, that turning point, that brief period when I truly let go of expectation, I’d be lost. It is waaaaay too easy for me to fall into utter self-absorption and it takes something extreme- like being faced with the rural poor of southern America, or two weeks away from my friends, life and job- to remember to let go.

One of my leadership coaches has spoken to me at length about my expectations. Until recently, I thought that expectations were okay, really- that perhaps I should count on people to behave a certain way, even if I knew it wasn’t in their nature, and that I had reason to be disappointed when they behaved differently. But I think that these expectations have been at the root of most of my heartache and discontent. It’s a terribly difficult thing to give up, because sometimes giving up expectations feels a lot like giving up hope. And no matter how many times I’ve been disappointed, no matter how many times I’ve been metaphorically kicked in the teeth, no matter how many times I’ve disappointed myself, somehow, hope endures. You’d think, by now, it wouldn’t, but even in the depths of my hopelessness, even when in the middle of my yearly breakdown in the car on the way home from Christmas, hope endures. I guess I’m in the middle of separating hope from expectations, and it is a painful divide.

But my hopes, oh, they could fill a house. Part of me feels like I should be more thankful for the life I already have. I know that what it feels like for me to go to work every day is about a billion times better than how millions feel about going to work. And yet… and yet… I want more. I want to feel like I am truly, honestly, fully living up to what I can do, every single day. I want to make good on the promises I’ve made myself, and to honor the Fates who blessed me with what can be an annoyingly clear focus.

And I want more kisses that leave me breathless.

please have snow and mistletoe

Posted December 21st, 2005 by Michelle

It’s four days to Christmas, and all of the Williams kids are in New York. It’s delightful. Last night, three brothers, two wives, two nephews, one girlfriend, the mom, and little ‘ol me all slept in the same house- a two-bedroom house, mind you- and all morning I’ve been wandering from room to room, because someone interesting and awesome is in every space. This is Christmas to me. I certainly enjoy the giving and getting of extremely cool gifts, but this is the truly good stuff.

Of course, I am also in New York during the transit strike, which has put a major wrinkle in my holidays plans, but it means more time with my family, and I have no complaints. Yesterday, Jordana and I spent all day shopping in Queens, and even though it was brutal cold, even though we got a flat tire, it was still a really good day. And now there are a number of us in my brother Sean’s bedroom, watching C-Span, talking abou ANWAR and bitching about the strike. Call me crazy, but this is my kind of vacation.

And today, later this afternoon, I’ll be seeing an old friend I haven’t seen in twenty years. That right there is an extraordinary Christmas present. All I need now is a pony.