msafire.diaryland.com

2021-03-29 - 7:05 p.m.

I really do love my new job.
Trouble is I get obsessive about making a work product as PERFECT as possible, and take too long on it.

I know that it is not a crisis if every possible thing to improve is not improved when I touch a document.

I mean for MPTh number of years this company functioned, had the same deliverables and successfully did business....
so those details I notice are not truly that critical.

Not so critical that I spend half a day on a weekend, actually more ( as truth be told I can actually work while AT WORK at my one Part Time job when it is slow. With COVID and no folks coming into that workplace that means it is slow on my weekend shift.)

I am only billing a certain # of hrs.

I am truly happy so far with the work life balance of my new job....

EXCEPT this weekend, and then today I was not particularly efficient.

And I am tired. I am always a bit tired on a Monday after working both Sat and Sun at my part time job.

IT kinda stinks when that Mon is in the last day or days of a month and there are deadlines I have to meet.

YEaH a thing I said YES to which i should have likely told my boss NO to.

Thing is, if energy there I could have knocked it out. But first I had to do some reseach... got that done....
and then had to organize my email and get all my things filed away sot he ONLY thing on my plate (desktop) literally were the daily tasks on hand for TODAY.

That is a great habit. Keeps me organized. I had some things that came in on Wed and Thu I had not filed in their places--- so had to do that filing.... just organizational clean up.

OK, so I was procrastinating a bit.. doing all those little things Its an anxiety calming habit I think. The busyness of easy tasks to do while kinda THINKING about a larger one. Needing time to process and think about the important task. It feels like a clearing of my mind to focus. Removing all distraction.

Bummer was I had a larger project ALMOST done with I said would deliver today and WANTED to get it done.

ALMOST there...
but there is always something I can tweak... that one thing I see and have to fix to improve it.. I think "Oh let me not send it yet... I am going to do __X___ " and I think "It won't take long".

I COULD have met that darn deadline had I just sent the thing HECK this morning at 9am... or later at 10 .. or 11... after I made further improvements.

I feel like it is not done.

This is the trouble with working with LEGAL LANGUAGE

AS my boss at the one Fortune 100 Telecom said
"There are many ways to skin a cat"

She had some phrases like that I had never heard before that struck me as funny at the time. To hear the corporate lawyer come up with these funny colloquialisms at the most unexpected time was fun. I so enjoyed working with her. She was this lady from Bermuda, with a British sounding accent and a somewhat British sensibilty , except without the expected sense of humor. I think that job was lost the Boss' Day I bought her Office Space and a red stapler.

Anyway, the day got lost when I was getting tired and then given a couple time intensive important tasks.... and I think I panicked as was late with the OTHER project.. I was being a perfectionist on.

But I didn't let that anxiety slow me down too much. I dug in and wanted to be sure the next tasks ( THE HAVE TO be DONE TODAY TASKS ) Were done WELL..

And the good news is I noticed a pretty critical TO DO we as a team have to get done. So yeah I did have a good added value due to my careful reading and interperting specifications...

I know I do a good job and add value. There is often an actual TANGIBLE amount of money I can see I helped a company retain or gain.

No question.

But I also know I can at times be super quick at getting things done, and other times just painfully slow. Its unfortunately NOT consistent.
And why that is can't be really anticipated too much...

Never know when I will have quality sleep etc...
even when go to be early.
Never know when technology JUST DOESN"T WORK CORRECTLY. I swear this happens to me unusually often. Seriously... system glitches.
Things like my cell phone just DROPPING SERVICE out of the blue on the first day of my new job in my new office as an example.
Today I did have a weird connectivity issue crop up. So my Outlook would not load on my laptop. I had just organized all that email and the darn thing was not refreshing and loading properly. Over the weekend it was a pain I had some issues with the most recent version of a document not saving. Annoyances that slow me down... and get a but tedious. They are just time suckers attacking my efficiency, a distraction and energy suckers.

So there was a morning of energy sucking from the lack of synching.

So , Today I was looking forward to a dance class at 4pm. I was a bit behind..>

. almost emailed the deliverable due then .. and was trying to do ONE LAST THING...
and I just couldn't email it knowing I saw another thing to be fixed.

The thing is if I leave an error it will end up getting replicated... and this will be the model used and I don't want the model to be flawed.

So....

I decided... well it will be fine if I send that LATER. AFTER THE CLASS which is priority for me.
I carved out this time. I am going to go to the class, release stress and I will feel much better and likely be able to focus and then knock off my work! EXERCISE HELPS.

I had already had two walks with Bellatrix today. But one was super early... Heck it was a NICE MORNING until maybe 1pm, when the deadline of the critical item to be done was dropped on my plate... One of those things... it just happens sometimes. I am glad I didn't SAY I Would do it today. I mean it is kinda obvious it has to be done today or tomorrow latest...

But I said I would do it, So I will...
To be delivered tomorrow is likely the best I can do as I am super tired. And I WILL Deliver the thing I said would be done today... just by tonight rather than earlier today.

But first I just have to vent about what de-railed me.
It was the damndest thing.
Literally.

I stopped working at 4:05, realizing it was time for the dance class I signed up for.

I tried to get teens to join me.. tried to get them off a video game to stream it into the living room. NO GO
They overruled me....
yes that is sad... but I wasn't going to go ballistic to force them to yield the TV to me. .I gave up the argument as they were correct I could log into the class using my laptop which is a pretty big screen.

TRUE...
SO I went back to my office and by then it was actually pretty late... I had to hunt down my personal lap top, wait to get all set up and logged into the class.

I was disappointed I had not been mindful of the time when working to honor myself enough to be on time for this thing I was doing today FOR ME.

I was so intending on NOT working a lot today. I intended to make up for the weekend work marathon of perfectionism.

But.. instead of being energized by dance class and then knocking off the few things left...

I joined the call, and as the instructor was giving instructions and I was there dancing along and following his prompts...
which were

Tension... RAGE... expressed.

Then relax body into self in rest Stillness

Rage
then be still

and he was teaching the next motion in a choreographed piece this artist had created and performed. He is on the cover of a Dance Magazine currently and I was so honored to be in this space learning from him,
and he was saying

1,2,3,4,
now point your finger...

Someone interrupted and said something
a sort of inaudible mumble to my ear
He politely said "Please mute yourselves;
hold questions. I will teach and then after take all questions, if that's OK"

And a male voice Violently responded
"Not OK NIGGER"

My whole being felt assaulted. I am not kidding when I write that that impact of this occuring was so harsh and hurtful and raw and real

It was cutting to my core in the moment.

I just never have been on the receiving end of such hatred as this.
It was palable and scary
and the teacher was just shocked I believe

yet clearly was mentally prepared to face such more than me I suppose as he was so poised in his handling of it.
So graceful actually in his matter of fact responses.
to ask the administrator to mute and said "Someone is here that is not meant to be here"
And of course everyone was muted as we respectfully were expected to be.

But the silence in response to racism to me is never an appropriate response.
I viscerally take silence as irresponsible.
I think it OK to be silent if you are being called Nigger and want to live and understand the threat to your life in the moment.

But I think that if you are a white bystander, a third party victim of such assault and hatred who has the shield of protection of whiteness that there is a complicity in allowing such violence to happen without response , without trying to send the message that you too, as a WHITE PERSON find this reprehensible, violent and hurtful.
I feel an OBLIGATION to speak up.
So I did.
I said I was upset at the disruption and find it really disturbing. I also said 'I think we should ALL be unmuted to say what we think of this"

And I mean that.

White Allies
UNMUTE YOURSELVES

Whenever you see racism.

SEE SOMETHNG
SAY SOMETHING

Please.

I am still upset, but writing helps.

Having sent a complaint to the FBI also helps.

See something
Say something

look for the FBI Link to report incidence of violence on line here:

https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/boston/news/press-releases/fbi-warns-of-teleconferencing-and-online-classroom-hijacking-during-covid-19-pandemic

Oh, and you can also report things like phone tapping,,, or hacking of computers etc...

If anyone just happens to be a victim of domestic violence via internet crimes such as that, there are some fucked up abusers out there who do shit like that which is reprehensible and rather unbelievable sometimes.

Well, turns out perhaps not always disbelieved.
Perhaps not always.

Good to know, right?

I am tired. I will log back in for just a SHORT while.. knock of the one item at least. Then to bed. The rest will still be there tomorrow.

That dance class exhausted me tremendously. I was just DONE for the day really after that experience. I initially literally cried and then just felt a wash of utter sadness. I mean like I never felt so deeply saddened than after that experience. It cut me deep to the core in such a way that felt so utterly personal. It might be hard to describe but I was overwhelmed with sadness at how violent that is to expose people to such hatred when many are in their homes alone, and then just cut off with that being the last experience of having connected with others.

I didn't mention the participants were discussing briefly prior to the instruction how in the 30th Anniversary of the ADA , as crips,

yes self identified crippled,

for this was a dance class taught by a disabled teacher, oh yeah, I forgot that detail.. but here when the sadness of how violent the exchange was and that participants would be left stranded alone

seemed more appalling knowing that many are disabled, who self identify as "crips" as they said..

and were discussing how they found the protests of late themselves really offensive

I wanted to understand more so tried to find some crip culture views on activist of late...

So I ran a google search

Oh the first reference I found to use of "Crips" is in this sociology project on subcultures- and I am not finding reference to disabled subcultures; but identifying with a black led community with hyphenated name of Crips back in the 60s or so... funny as that is NOT the referent looking for. But the whole point of the offense is really clear in what I did find. The point is that here 30 yrs later, after ADA, and activists are STILL largely IGNORING Crip Culture, disabled culture! The point so clearly evidenced by a sociology study of subcultures not mentioning one disabled subculture.

Yes not being SEEN, not being ACKNOWLEDGED AS EXISTING is indeed painful.

There is a distinct DEAF subculture

and a distinct disabled subculture or subcultures!

And autistic subculture

a "Crip" subculture of activists...

I need to keep looking at the below site.. as not seeing those at all represented!

https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultural-theory-and-theorists/intersectionality/

NOW this is more like what I was looking for to help out the uninitiated, unfamiliar with disability activism:

https://www.bitchmedia.org/post/lets-talk-about-crip-culture

The offense seems to be that for disabled, recent activism efforts largely ignored the disabled bodies.

The mass collective gatherings were oblivious to the interests of disabled bodies My thought was...

REST IS ACTIVISM .

That topic seemed to be skirted at in the conversation a bit today.,. the conversation that was happening just as I joined the dance class late so missed that and caught the tail end. I have been intending to write about that topic so thought it interesting and timely to be reminded of it, right before the teacher started teaching.

So that is where my thoughts went ; thinking of-

REST AS ACTIVISM

and how at times Activism , contingent on bodies collectively gathering during a pandemic in particular, can be counterintuitive to the cause perhaps...

I am not sure if the offense being articulated was primarily about the idea of activism itself being so narrow and excluding.... ironically

OR if the notion of offense was due to fact that activists gathering in public places during COVID completely disregard the very well being of disabled by taking risk of super spreader events. Not sure exactly what the crip's offense was/is.... however,

I was interested in hearing more...

it was a snippet of a conversation...that made me think of REST as activism

and then the teaching of dance

Dance by a particular disabled body FOR those interested in his experience shared in his art, and for this dance community and this crip community and this community of allies converging to try to understand those who are not the mainstream norm..

disrupted by intolerance of someone uniquely different by one who is racist in their fear of difference

and the discussion WAS about the disabled body DANCE as art representing self and/or community with this disabled master of dance teaching dance and discussing in particular disabled dance.

So I wished I had tuned in earlier to have heard that discussion more fully

and just at the moment of assault felt so very crushed by the evil of such. A crushing sadness

at the utter contempt of the speaker to a whole community/ communities converged trying to celebrate their uniqueness with pride and joy and creation of

BEAUTY

when some can only see different as ugly.

The complexity of that celebration of ACTION in movement , movement and dance of a disabled body

when that may take more courage

more strength

more effort than some will ever understand

being so disrupted was just so wrenching for me. A gut punch that took my wind out.

So much I still need to process.

It is not rest in act of resistance; in act of disruption and activism for me that leads me to write just now and rest rather than work.

It is rest as a need.

As a means of healing.

This writing,

and this inability to work for a bit, to process, to heal , to rest.

To reflect.

and RAGE

and then return the body to the place of stillness.

Knowing I can re-set.

So I CAN continue to work; to succeed; to affect change where I am able.

There are a couple things I know with certainty we must dismantle in our society, in our world.

Racism

Abelism are the two I am compelled to not be silent about.

So now I think I just need to sleep.

So I can awake with passion tomorrow morning early. The NEW DAY

to finish my commitments and kill the day

with competence

and completion of all left now unfinished.

For it is in my success in spaces I am blessed to be in which allow me the gift of a leadership role, Just being in the role opens up more opportunity to mentor others to not silence their selves, but listen to their selves and let their dreams guide them to share their voice, their song, their dance, their coding, their writing, their project management, their skills at service of others, or whatever gifts they are given wherever they are led to be. And yes, if that means you are offered the gift of being present in your family, gracing others with your unique joy and humor and occasional cooking in their living room as your adventure means once in a while being able to get out of bed...

WELL

IT IS ENOUGH.

If you dance in your living room , your study, for yourself and can be happy and content and grateful

IT IS ENOUGH

If the only writing you ever do is in a personal journal no one else ever reads but it gives you peace and joy

IT IS ENOUGH

See.. I come full circle through my own writing.

I know the best I can do

IS ENOUGH.

So tonight I needed to rest, unwind and detox from trauma of the unexpected, then will sleep.

I have finished my raging rant, and can now take position

1, 2, 3, 4

Settle

Sleep

And tomorrow will do, will be Good Enough.

For me this process of a trauma, rest, healing, then re-engaging I hope takes but this afternoon/evening and night of sleep before awaking renewed.

Just imagine when the assaults are repeated...

over and over...

and piled on.

Time is needed to heal.

Patience required of others , and understanding, during this collective process.

Reparations are being asked for, called for.

It may not be a bowl of soup or a meal train..

but hey...

We can support the healing of racism a bit. Start by being an ally

and perhaps

give a plant

https://www.freedemplants.com/

No it is not easy to be present fully, actually listen and try to understand. It will be at times downright traumatic once you actually get it- what it means when one utters such vile hatred. But together I believe we will eventually get through this. We hopefully are passing through the phases of sadness, rage... and perhaps eventually can

Settle.

Heal.

and

Awaken.

I hope...

I am truth be told still crying... but I know this will pass....

I know I will sleep ...

Yet tears come at the enormity of the collective pain. The small insight into such is itself too much for me in a moment, such that trying to imagine the sustained subjection of such attacks is truly heartbreaking. To know I have been desensitized. To know so many are desensitized because such abuse has been so normalized....has not been something WE were subjected to so never paid attention to it.

When you are on a zoom call each speaker sounds as if speaking to you.

That is what is different.

In this world of on line realities, the speaker uttering such hatred was received in my ear AS IF SPOKEN TO ME.

And that really struck me deeply.

What struck me more painfully was the reality I never really understood,

VISCERALLY, how those attacks felt

that collectively so many do not understand, and

don't truly listen when the experience is shared.

My response to trauma in my life was to have a thick skin, To IGNORE IT, To think myself invulnerable, to become dissociatively desensitized in the face of abuse. To be fully present can be quiet painful!

We are all, as one so eloquently wrote, "Passing through the revolution" one way or another, skin color, ability or disability notwithstanding. Some slower to understand than others it seems. Some very disconnected to the reality of racism in this world and the immense impact it has on so many people. Some disconnected to the reality of even abusive language that they may sling.

How the harsh word, the message "you are worthless"

the not being seen,

the not being heard

being disregarded

can be so damaging

The message "You are not welcome here"

How it is precursor to the abusive action of trying to be rid of you.

How does it feel when you think someone is trying to kill you?

That is how collectively generations of Black Americans, Native Americans,

Japanese, and others have felt.

Intentional thwarting of their ability to succeed.

Which is a way to try to kill someone.