Is it Secret? Is it Safe?

The most exciting part about my secret is the point where I am right now, therefore, I need to bring you into the loop. You see, it's one of those things that may never happen, but the exciting part is that it COULD happen. A close encounter with an adventure is almost as good as a real adventure. It's like looking at the presents under the tree before you open them. Dreaming about what COULD be is almost more thrilling than reality!

So here it is....

Once upon a time there was a girl who was very good at her boring old job (so boring, in fact, that she never talked about her job unless she was attempting to lull a family member or friend to sleep). One day she saw an announcement looking for talent in her particular field. She tossed the announcement in the garbage, but then it arrived at her desk again. She thought, what can it hurt?

She submitted some information and the recruiter responded right away. The recruiter told her that the development director REALLY liked her for talent! But then she waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, she gave up.

Even if they wanted her as talent for a reality TV show about her field of expertise, it didn't mean anything. The show might just be on a list of a hundred other show ideas that are passed over by some producer, and then forgotten forever. The show might grow roots and actually get a pilot out, but if no network wants the thing, it may rot away in some basement, never to see the light of day. If the network did take it on for size, it MIGHT have one season, but then, if it is so boring that nobody will watch it (did I fail to mention that not even my friends want me to talk about my job?) it goes off air, a fallen leaf on the network of TV programs begging for your time.

As I was saying, the recruiter passed her, er, my information along, and a month later (yesterday) I find an e-mail that wound up in my junk mail box ten days earlier. They are finally ready to take a closer look at this show. Is it too late? I e-mail and wait for a response...

Them: Sorry we couldn't get back with you sooner. May we call you?

Me: Yes.

Them: Tomorrow?

Me: Yes.

Today they called to interview me. At the end of an hour long discussion, the interviewer asked, "May we call you again next week? I would like to have you speak with [development director]. She wanted to speak with you today, but we just had a show picked up by TLC that they wanted right away, and she has had her hands full with that."

Those are the facts, folks. I am a realist while loving the dream, and even if it never happens, it's still exciting to be asked in the first place. That is my secret (er, one of them)! Shhhhhh!!! Don't tell!!!

"She turned me into a NEWT!"

Today was Foreign Accent Friday. It is especially fun because C is really good at doing accents, and I have been told that I am too. Today was our first shot at FAF. Our accent of choice fell somewhere near the Monty Python, "She turned me into a NEWT!"

Our farewell went something like this:

C, holding A in a kissable hug: All right then, kiss me right 'ere.

A, leaning into his right ear: Your right ear?

C: No, right 'ere.

A, leaning to his left ear: Oh, the OTHER right ear!

C: No, right 'ERE!

And that's how we kissed goodbye for the day!

Without Saying Too Much...

Excitement galore today!
I wish I could just spill the beans and tell you every single detail of it. Let me be a little hypothetical instead.

What if...

...you had someone offer you an AMAZING opportunity over a month ago (as this develops into more than a possibility, I WILL share more), and you figured they just forgot all about you...

BUT THEN!!! Today you found the e-mail you'd waited for had wandered into your bulk e-mail account by chance and it has been sitting there for TEN DAYS!!!

You grieve, you writhe, you ache, you mourn, and then you call, hoping that somehow it isn't too late after all! You send them the information they need, and then you wait...

...And while you wait, you check your e-mail 100 times waiting for a response, and after your sweet prince takes you out for sushi to discuss the exciting, but very secretive events of the day, he holds your hand and guides you up on a big rock where you stand while he hugs you at the waist, holding you as if those people walking by didn't really exist, and as if the entire world had stopped spinning just to pause and take note of this happy little moment...

...this life pours you a sweet cup of nectar tipped with blissful blessings, and you drink it in as if it were the most wonderful day of all. A tiny spark of simple hope lights its fire in your heart of hearts and warms the place that so recently festered with despair's sting, until a syrup of joy trickles and dances through your veins.

You return home to find that the bulk mailbox once again played your emotions like a lyre and out emerges the answer you so wistfully watched for all day. There the spark of hope flickered into a possibility, and there it sat, like a last magical unopened present at Christmastime that somehow fell unnoticed until long after the early morning thrill, a final unopened answer, an unseen dream, an unfulfilled wish.

But welcome, new follower! You've already captured my affections with your magical, curious world! Thank you for introducing yourself in such a delightful way!

We are at an impasse

MAN IN BLACK

Perhaps an arrangement can be reached.

VIZZINI

There will be no arrangement --

-- and you're killing her!

MAN IN BLACK

But if there can be no arrangement, then we are at an impasse.

There is an unusual reoccurring phenomenon in my life. It is not unlike the day when you woke up and realized that your favorite shirt at age eight no longer fit you at age nine, or the day when you looked at the sizzling basket of french fries in the deep fat fryer and realized that you didn't want to do this anymore. Okay, so I only worked at a burger joint for maybe a month before I realized that and quit, but you see where I am heading here.

It is the moment when you are tired of high school in the first months of your Senior year and are ready for something else. There is something stagnant about where you are because you realize that it simply isn't taking you where you want to go. Just like the airplane that sets its course for the final destination and must make hundreds of tiny adjustments as it travels through the air, lest it arrive far from the determined terminus, our lives need to adjust and adapt.

It usually happens when I have started to feel incredibly comfortable and safe, and then it begins. I realize that somewhere along the way this place stopped fitting, or perhaps I stopped being true to who I am and what I truly want, and it isn't enough to just keep moving forward. It is that veritable fork in the road where I realize that with some risk on my part, I may take a different path. Perhaps that different path is the right path where I will stay true to who and what I am, and my sudden feeling of discomfort is a voice telling me to follow it.

I am not speaking of relationships here. I am speaking about choices. Unfortunately I believe some lost souls mistake those feelings for the need for a different relationship when they have already made a lifelong commitment to the right person in the first place. This is a sad state of affairs (no pun intended) and as you can see this is not within the realm of my topic today.

Where did this all come from? It happened like this:

I pulled out a book that I had not read for a long time to offer to a friend who asked for it when we were making plans for her birthday. It was attached to my elliptical with a soft headband to hold the pages open. I tossed it in my car, intending to drop it off later that day along with another book for another nearby friend. While sitting at a light I glanced down and read the following from John Gottman's The Relationship Cure:

"Our culture discourages people from paying attention to difficult

feelings, because getting to the root of what makes you angry or

sad can bring about change in your life. It can take you away from

the role into which you've been cast - - whether that role fits or not.

"I'm reminded of the Nike ad that so pervaded our culture in recent

years: "Just Do It." To me, the subtext read, 'Don't think of how you

feel about doing it, because then you may not do it at all. You may

never set records, you may never achieve success. You'll wind up

a failure.'

"But I suggest that if you look into your heart and find that you really

don't want to do it -- whether "it" is to pursue a certain career goal,

commit to a new relationship, or go for some other brass ring that

others define as ultimate success--then perhaps you shouldn't."

Dr. Gottman then describes a young woman who chose a career as an accountant rather than a mathematician because she felt it would pay better. Years later she was depressed and her work lacked spirit, and she "regretted that she had silenced that small but uncomfortable voice inside that was telling her she was headed in the wrong direction."

The last part of the book I want to quote is this:

"Fear of changing paths is certainly a major reason that people try

to detach from their feelings. But perhaps the strongest and most

basic reason is to avoid experiencing the very real pain that

emotions can bring."

I wish I had some strategic plan that included building up an immunity to iocane powder so that I could easily beat my impasse opponent, but with some luck, and plenty of prayer, I will find my path again. In the meantime, I feel a bit like this fellow:

WHERE is Your Sense of ADVENTURE?!!!

Welcome to my ADVENTURE QUIZZZZZZ! This is a test. This is only a test. This is a test of the emergency adventure center.

All scores will be based upon complete and honest answers of the following adventure metered questions. Scoring will be included in the subsequent post after you help me finish the last question of the quiz.

1. Are you the type of person who hides EASTER EGGS in your blog?

2. Are you the type of person who hides objects in the backs of photos or journals for your posterity to find?

3. Have you ever written a letter or journal entry in another language?

4. Have you ever made up your own language (perhaps the one you wrote the letter or journal entry in?)

5. Have you ever written a suspense thriller story or novel, or movie, and felt excited about figuring out how it will end?

6. When you have children in your home (whether they belong to you or not), do you ever hold treasure hunts, or play/create seek and find types of games with/for them? Or, have you ever hidden something and created a treasure map so that YOU could find it? ARRRRR, me matees!

7. Are you the type of person who has a magical element about you so that children could believe that there is a piece of hidden magic somewhere in your world (Lion, Witch and Wardrobe portal, for example)?

8. When I hear the word PAINT, the first thing that comes to mind is...

A. a canvas and a palette, sitting somewhere lovely and painting a masterpiece!

B. my fence (or bathroom, hallway, etc.). It really needs some paint...

C. a big mess. I don't even want to hear the word, especially when kids are around.

9. When I think of traveling to another country, the first thing that comes to mind is...

A. adventure! New food, new faces, new experiences, new places!

B. visiting those sites I see on the Discovery or History channel and am dying to see.

C. going on tours with large groups of people or traveling on a cruise ship

D. getting shots, waiting around in airports, expenses, and glad to be home again.

10. ***READER PARTICIPATION REQUIRED*** You write this question! No, really! Just write it right

down

there

|

V

You don't even have to tell me who you are!

Wochenende Linnuke

1. Help Coco find an AMAZING new home: LINNUKE! (Mental Note: I think he will heretofore be know as Crash, although he will be doted on like a king.)

2. Put the rest of my plants in the ground: LINNUKE! (Mental Note: Purchase tomatoes the week AFTER Mother's Day so they don't stain the bottom of my tub waiting around for two weeks)

3. Buy six bottles of Bistro Blends in Vegas via C's motorcycle trip: LINNUKE! (Thank you, C, for being such a good hubby!)

4. Get hair done: LINNUKE! (Is the true definition of pampering, 'two men simultaneously drying your hair with huge round brushes while you all chat over pleasantries like technology'? I think YES. Sorry no pic. Does C cringe every time he sees the price tag on that experience? MOST DEFINITELY.)

5. Have our wedding video transferred to digital files (not just a DVD, but full-on high res .avi files): LINNUKE! (Teach said transferrer about new optical disc technologies that don't contain organic dyes that deteriorate over time - linnuke.)

6. Write a blog entry using the Estonian word for checkmark: LINNUKE!

Follower Buttons!

For those who are new, I like to make a couple of follower buttons for those who publicly follow my blog. I put the code for them on one of my less-used programming blogs.

Instructions for adding buttons to your blog are included below. To view past buttons, go here, here, and here! Enjoy!

The first thing you will see is a visual representation of the button. Second, you will see the code you need to post that button on your blog. Third, you will see the code for the "Take-a-button" text box you will place beneath the button.

1. Copy the code for the latter two, and then you will click the "Layout Tab" on your blog.
2. On "Add and Arrange Page Elements" click "Add a Gadget" and select an html/Javascript box.
3. Paste the code in that box, and you are ready to go! Now your followers will be able to take a button to show that they are following your blog!
4. If you don't like the photo or text I picked for you, send me what you want to nixiao {at} comcast {dot} net. If you just want a different color or shape or size, just say the word. Those are easy changes.
5. Enjoy, and thanks for following!