Tag Archives: crazy

Where’ve you been?

17 Dec
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Things have been a bit crazy.

Wow. Four months?! That’s the longest I’ve stayed away from Ye Olde Blog. With this much time since my last post, I’m going to guess anyone who read pithypants with much regularity has wandered off for greener pastures. But on the off-chance that someone’s out there, stalking this site regularly in hopes of some new content – I’ll give it a go.

First, I have a back-log of posts I need to get to. Like when we went to Vancouver for vacation and – as a result of food poisoning – I learned that Pho tastes pretty much the same coming up as it does going down. (And that apparently six hours isn’t enough time for your stomach acid to break down rice noodles – and that you really SHOULD chew your food 64 times before swallowing it, unless you want to choke on a noodle when it reappears.)

Or the time I visited my friend in Atlanta and ended up in the awkward position of having to interrupt a group of women drinking wine poolside to let them know that one of their little angels (not referring to myself cryptically here, for the record) had not only clogged and overflowed the toilet, but had also somehow managed to actually shit down the outside of the aforementioned toilet.

Or the time I spilled $310 of quarters on the floor of Alan’s car. (Don’t ask.)

There’s more (there always is, isn’t there?) but I’ll spare you – for now.

I suppose I owe you an explanation. Why haven’t I been writing? Well, at some point this fall I started to listen to the little voice in my head. The voice that once told me to quit my job and move to France in 2003. The same one that encouraged me to apply to Georgetown to get a coaching certificate three years ago. This time, the voice said, “It’s time to do your own thing. Hang out a shingle. Work for yourself. What are you waiting for?”

Originally my response to the voice was, “Hush. I like my job. A lot.” But then I started to realize that whenever I thought of coaching full time, I’d get little butterflies in my stomach. Not the post-Pho, barfy kind – more like the excited, “I have a crush” kind. Things that might make other people think twice about starting a company (writing a business plan, defining service offerings, crafting a sales pitch) – would wake me in the middle of the night because I’d be too excited to sleep.

So while it might seem crazy for me to walk away from a job I enjoy, at some point, I decided to listen to the voice – because whenever I’ve heeded its calling in the past, it’s steered me right. It hasn’t always steered me toward riches – but it’s made my life richer by taking me off the predictable path. So here it is, the end of 2016, and – in a month – I plan to trade a great job I’ve enjoyed for nine years to take a chance on my own thing. Goodbye security. Hello, hustle.

When you ask why I haven’t written in months, it’s not because life hasn’t been pithy. (It has!) It’s just that life has also been BUSY. With a limited number of hours before and after work, I’ve channeled what HAD been my evening blogging time (and eating time, and working out time) into prepping a business launch.

So yeah, I haven’t been writing as much. I’ve been a bit busy. But man, you should see my hustle…

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Lesson: Sometimes multitasking makes you look crazy.

7 Sep

Having seen a number of photos of myself lately in which I look like Trudi from Facts of Life, I’ve decided it’s time to get back in some semblance of shape.

Oh, I’m generally pretty active (I walk between 20-25 miles and hit yoga 3-4 times per week), but I eat like crap. There’s just too much food that I enjoy, so rather than diet, my solution has always been to compensate with activity.

Except recently, I haven’t. I’ve been on the road for work (with more of the same in the near future), and I’ve been content skipping the hotel gyms and leaving my sneakers at home. Hence why you might call me Trudi.

So yesterday I went to the lap pool for the first time since the beginning of summer. In addition to burning calories, I find swimming therapeutic. It’s a good way to clear my brain when I’m feeling like I’ve lost the battle for work/life balance.

The problem with being an awesome multitasker, however, is that even as I swam my therapeutic laps, I was planning my to-do list and mentally preparing for conference calls. Not exactly “clearing my brain.”

Recognizing that my default setting is ACTIVE, I decided to channel my multitasking urge toward meditation, since I’ve been meaning to try that anyway. As you’ve probably guessed, I’m not good at sitting still and meditating. But there are moving meditations where you meditate on a specific mantra while you’re doing something. That struck me as more my speed.

So as I swam freestyle down the length of the pool, I thought, “I’m balanced. I’m balanced. I’m balanced.” And on my return length of breaststroke, I thought, “I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful.” (There is no correlation between the stroke and the mantra, for the record.)

The first challenge with this plan was finding a way to continue counting my laps. I usually do a mile, which is 70 laps. I keep track by repeating the number of the lap I’m on the entire time I’m swimming it.

So this turned my thought pattern into, “Four. Four. I’m balanced. Four. I’m balanced. Four. Four. I’m balanced…”

And then I decided that swimming laps and chanting “I’m balanced!” with numbers spliced into the mix sounded less like meditation and more like a crazy person trying to convince herself that she’s sane.

Which is probably somewhat accurate, since I’m pretty sure the point of meditation is to have a sole focus, NOT accomplish it while doing something else. Which probably means I’m not cut out for meditation. Which then led me to think about what a crazy swimmer would actually look like. And I decided it would look like THIS.

Which is exactly how I plan to swim all my laps in the future. Multi-tasking at its finest.

[LATER: Alan just pointed out that the fat character in Facts of Life was actually Natalie. And that there isn’t even a character named Trudi. It was Tootie. Because she had gas? Apparently the real moral of this post is this: Kids who are only allowed 30 minutes of television — PBS at that — each day, grow up lacking cultural reference points. No wonder I can’t focus. Television didn’t numb my brain. THANK YOU, Mom and Dad. Even if I don’t know Tootie from Natalie from Fruit Loops. Whatever.] 

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For Valentine’s Day, I gave Alan the gift of Crazy.

17 Feb

Since I had to travel for work on Monday (meaning I would miss Valentine’s Day) Alan and I decided we would celebrate early by making reservations at Brasserie Beck for dinner right after work Friday night.

We were both pretty excited about it, so when my leg ballooned to the size of an elephant’s trunk and I hopped a cab for the hospital, I called him with the news, “We may need to push back our dinner reservation, because I’m on my way to the ER.”

I probably should’ve started that call with, “I’m fine and you shouldn’t be worried…” but I was too fixated on the meal to think rationally. So it was no wonder Alan promptly freaked out and jumped in his car to meet me at the hospital.

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