Favorites

Enough of my whiny, what do I want to do with myself?, crap. This is my list of favorite places (in no particular order) to eat (my favorite thing to do, after all) in Gainesville and why. If anyone still reads this thing, please comment with your own favorites!

The Top: Especially Wednesday nights, because the mac and cheese is thisclose to tasting just like my Grandma's. And I love the lamps. I love the gnocci pesto too. Let's not forget the sweet potato fries.

New Deal and Mildred's: Local, organic food. Potato Parmesan soup, when they have it. Desert. Quiche. Yum.

The Jones: I've only been a few times, but I LOVE everything I've tried. Delicious! And they use compostable takeout containers. Mmmmm.

Satchel's: Who doesn't love it? the salad, the pizza, the menu stories, the music, the art, the happy staff...

Maude's: Who woulda thought to put sweet potatoes and refried beans together in a quesadilla with cheese and delicious fresh salsa? Maude's did, and it's so good! Also, this is the best place to find your friends if you don't know where they are (if they're not at the Top).

Liquid Ginger: Udon noodles. Tea. Lime salad dressing. Pillows. The most comfy booths on the planet. Reasonably priced for lunch (I've never even been for dinner).

Big Lou's Pizza: Great, consistent, anything you want on it pizza, within walking distance to my house. Plus they are always open when we want to go there (unlike Satchel's).

Saigon Legend: Potato curry. potato curry. potato curry. This might be my favorite thing to eat on Earth.

Flaco's: Lentils are so much better than those I make at home. Arepas with cheese. Good latin pastries too.

Emiliano's: Brunch is the best, and desert, oh my, desert!

Chipotle: I know, it's a chain, owned by evil McDonald's. But they use humanely raised meats, and their carnitas is pretty much the only meat I will eat anymore. It's just really good. and fast.

Cabana Cove: Have you been? If not, you should go there, it is really really good! Especially desert.

Silence Broken

Where have I been, you may wonder. True to form, I have been floating along, not recording much to speak of, while some of my journaling heroes continue to reflect on the minuitae that happens every day. I remind myself that when I was 11-12, I got a diary to write my most personal thoughts (just like my friends all had, right?), and I wrote in the first...five?....pages and it was forever unfinished.

But...when you know who and I were first dating, long distance, we wrote in journal form to each other nearly every day.

Well, anyway, "blogging" isn't something I will give myself guilt over. I will write when I want, and if months go by in between, well, so be it. Hopefully those of you who care to read will still check back once in a while.

I've noticed that I actually figure things out a bit better in conversations. I don't want to forget what I realized though, so I'm just recording it after the fact, I suppose. So, on with it...

Realization #1: I think one of the things I need for my "work" to be more fulfilling and less...eh...is to be personally involved. I like getting to know who people really are, and my work to be connected to it somehow. I don't give a fuck about the "professional" personas that everyone has. No one is honest about who they are, at least where I spend many hours of the week. It's why I sometimes envy my sister, who is a hairstylist. Well, disregarding the business aspects she deals with, her job is talking to her clients and working with them to make them happy with their hair. She gets to know them, makes friends, and connects on a personal level. When I worked in child protection, what I liked best was getting to know my clients, even if it was not always in a "friendly" manner. I'm tired of having to wade through the bureaucracy to get things done that don't even matter much to anyone personally.

That being said, I don't really want to have to work in collaboration with too many others at any given time. It just gets too complicated.

So, back to counseling? I do think I'm more prepared than I previously was to enter the field. I decided not to start on a Master's several years back because I was disillusioned with what my life as a therapist might be. Coming from DCF, I imagined counseling court-ordered individuals who would never really do any work, being faced with endless disappointments as I had in protective services (most of my families never changed that much and repeated the same things over and over). But, now I see my perspective was limited.

But is a mental health counseling MA the way to go? Maybe I should examine other arenas? Are there other ways to go about it? I already know I don't especially want to do crisis counseling. I really think helping in relationships would be the best fit (sound familiar? I think I said this 10 years ago even). Maybe I'll go get some counseling myself...

Winter

It seems to me that more lives end in the winter. At least I hear of more deaths this time of year. Several friends and acquaintances have lost significant people in their lives recently and I am once again confronted with my own feelings of not knowing how to help. Oh sure, I write a nice card and offer to listen, but there's a helplessness that no one can reach when a parent or good friend is lost that really can't be comforted by anyone else. And my own personal feeling (with a maybe attached?) that they are still connected and "will meet again" (not to be trite- because I don't mean "in heaven") really doesn't matter when you have so much time now to be without them.

Now Read This!

I have just finished reading Building the Green Economy: Success stories from the Grass Roots, by Kevin Danaher, Shannon Biggs, and Jason Mark. If you're feeling cynical and angsty about the same things that I often do (monoculturization, the environment, health, nutrition, corporate control of ...well, everything, etc., etc., etc.), I encourage, no, I urge you to read it as soon as possible. It's, for lack of a better word, inspiring. Makes you want to pick yourself up and go do something about it, already!

There I go again

You may have noticed some time has passed since my last entry. I'm sure it isn't because I have nothing to say, it isn't because I'm just so busy (playing scrabulous), or because I have stopped thinking about myself.

I have a pattern of becoming interested in doing something, then either doing it for only a short time (think exercise programs, myspace, food journals, etc,) before I either stop completely or just gradually do less, or I plan to do it forever and never or rarely actually start (think learning to use the sewing machine sitting in my dining room or selling my jewelry work). I am trying to stick to riding my bicycle. I am really quite proud of myself for riding to work several times and actually doing so whenever it's plausible.

But, why do I do this? It isn't really a "lazy" streak, as I like to call it, or depression, or because I take too long considering the financial costs or environmental impacts of my actions, although sometimes those are factors. Maybe it is fear of failure. I do have a need to do things I feel confident at. But also I like to try new things, and I like the process of learning and being challenged by something. So what gives? Am I concerned I just won't be good at sewing? It takes practice, I'm sure, but it would give me freedom from tailors if I could do it well. Or is it (as well as lots of other things) just not that important to me, as a close friend used to suggest? Or do I need to stop analyzing myself to death and just decide to start doing something already?

Dreams and Me

I had a bad dream last night that woke me up. Usually, I don't remember dreams and they rarely seem to communicate anything significant to me, but I remembered it when I woke up at 4:30 this morning briefly. I can't really recall details, but my dad was working in some sort of tall office building (not his real life job) and I was there (don't know why). Well we ended up having to hide in his office from some sort of attacker. The power was out or the lights were off and the "attacker" was still able to find us and busted through his glass window. For some reason, I think that it was night and I kept wondering why we didn't leave the building instead of hiding...

The other night, I dreamed that my sister and I were in a car with the windows up, it was raining and dark out. A young neighbor girl with long hair was outside knocking on the car window and I wondered why she was outside this late, especially in the rain.

So, from what I can tell in both of these, I seem to be feeling trapped and someone else is trying to get in...and it's always nighttime and dark... why did these two contain family members, I rarely put them in my dreams?

You'd think I've been feeling down, but I really haven't been. I'm actually on quite the upswing lately, even though the career-issue is not anywhere near solved yet. I noticed something about myself at last week's workshops I previously posted about: I prefer the one-on-one, more detail-oriented, day-to-day interactions than the "top," political, networking, "policy-making" types of work. I'm not sure how to explain it - like I'd rather be a carpenter than a general contractor...or a counselor/therapist vs. mayor of a city...deeper rather than broader. Ding ding!

Perfect Attendance

I work in Government. Local, fairly progressive, but government nonetheless. Today concluded two half days of "Sustainable Workplace Action Plan Workshops" where over 100 "Supervisors and Managers" came together to address issues within our "Organizational Culture." Mainly we wish to move from "top down," administrative, procedure based culture, to a more creative, integrative, values-aligned, and open one. The County manager hired a consultant, from New Zealand, to survey staff (the survey tool was not extremely well-accepted, since no one could input comments or skip questions that they didn't feel they could answer - can we say invalid?) and put together this workshop to help us improve things such as inter-department collaboration and information sharing, employee development and recognition, blah blah blah. Florida property taxes are being reduced (it's to be on the ballot in January, but it's pretty much a guarantee, right?) and we need to conserve revenue, so first we go hire a consultant from overseas, fly him here for several days, put him up in a nice hotel, rent a banquet hall, etc. etc. to generate ideas that, in my opinion, we could have come up with one mass email to all employees simply asking for their opinions and ideas. Oh, but there was popcorn and water yesterday and coffee and cookies today, so obviously they didn't want to "overspend."

OK, so my group worked on employee recognition and development. We had grand ideas of formal mentoring programs, better supervisory training, etc. etc. All great, and all within reach.
Now for the ironic twist: We currently have one annual Recognition luncheon for all employees, in which people are recognized for length of service, "good driving," and...drum roll please, "Perfect attendance." Well, I have always held the opinion that we should not be rewarded/recognized for never using annual or sick leave because this is not "aligned" with our values, since employees who stay home when ill and take vacations from time to time are far more productive (studies show...) than those who are miraculously able to stay perfectly well and never take off. Anyway, I mentioned this in the group, and our Administrative Manager (a very high level person in the County) agreed with me on this, then said that she tried to do away with it a few years ago, but there was such strong backlash from employees (because the reward is an extra day of leave- that they will never use I presume) that they didn't go forward with it. And then the subject was changed...

And they wonder why real change doesn't happen.