Buddhist Marketer

05 CLS

I still feel guilt about that March 1997 spring break afternoon.

Coach Willie had arranged for a practice regatta against two other schools (lingua Indiana: scrimmage). Looking back I recognize the coordination that must have gone into organizing the row. Which schools were training down in Tampa? Which ones had the same spring break schedule as us? Which ones were also bringing down novice boats? Willie must have done all of this behind the scenes.

But that wasn’t on my mind as we started paddling towards the starting line. What was on my mind was that I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t row, there was no way in hell I was going to race that day. I buried myself somewhere deep within and completely shut down. Maybe it was a panic attack but all I can remember is telling Maggie in front of me that I didn’t feel well, that I was sick, I couldn’t row, I couldn’t do it.

Had Willie been more like the chair-throwing basketball coach I had in middle school, he might’ve raised his voice and told me snap out of it. “Quit your lollygaggin’, Patrick!” was what Coach Hutton used to bellow, all the more amusing since I was a record-setting sprinter. And who knows, maybe yelling would have helped. Maybe if Mags had been able to turn around in the boat and put her hands on my shoulders and talk me off the ledge, that could’ve helped. Who knows.

But Willie had the mild demeanor of an ultra marathoner, so he simply stated, “It’s too bad I didn’t know sooner. I could have brought an extra rower out on the launch to swap you out.” And so I curled down into my oar, head into my knees, the five seat behind me likely watching her oar flap and bounce and slap along the water as the rest of the team paddled back to the boathouse. Willie looked quietly on from the launch.

I crashed onto a couch at the boathouse and passed into blackness for a few hours, not knowing why I’d shut down and certainly unable to switch myself back on. The bright Florida sunshine and boisterousness of the rowers buzzed around me, but there I was, a lump on the couch. Broken. Down.

I had disappointed my entire boat. And to this day I am not entirely sure how or why that happened.

*  *  *

The Sunday after New Year’s Day, I broke one of Pablo’s wine glasses while washing dishes at his apartment. When he returned home from the gym, I stood up with mock seriousness and announced, “I have some bad news to report.”

He blinked at me with expectation. He looked nervous. My acting chops must be better than I thought!

I reported the broken glass, but assured him, “Don’t worry, I have dozens of wine glasses so it shouldn’t be a problem once we theoretically cohabitate.” He’d been talking about getting married and having babies and moving in together since practically the moment we met, after all, and we’d recently agreed to move in together when his lease expired in March.

“Well,” he said, turning to put down his bag, blinking, “I have some bad news too.” He paused, and suddenly the air felt like gravy. “I renewed my lease. I’m not ready to move in with you.”

And so there it was. We were at the starting line, and yet, he couldn’t row.

And so I looked down at my luggage, opened it up, filled it with my belongings, and rolled away.

* * *

“Well, there go my 2010 goals!” I thought, huffing the six blocks or so to my own studio. “And damn, I just blogged about them, and then published the post to my open Facebook feed. Argh!”

And then, “This is what I get for trusting someone!” But I quickly batted that mosquito-thought away. Humans are humans; they’re not predictable lines of IF THEN code, and just as I discover new and interesting things about myself each day, so too does everyone else about themselves. So what if he had claimed he wanted to get me pregnant? Man, every dude with half a brain probably “thinks”, on some level, that he wants to get me pregnant.

But the river moves, and the moment you try and freeze-frame it, it ceases to be a river.

I was sifting through some papers in my office the other day, attempting to declutter that thing so I can open up a think tank co-op of sorts, when I happened upon a print-out of a blog post from a few years ago.

But now the streets of Brooklyn, once pure, have been tainted with the sour hue of failed relationships. The Park Slope photographer, the Park Slope film director, the unemployed guy in Greenpoint, the social worker in Prospect Heights: fits and starts, the engine stalls, fifth gear is never reached.

I’m a high octane woman. I can do better than this.

“Wow,” I thought. “What a bitch.” Better than? And the only data points provided are the careers of the men in question?

Good gravy. It made me squirm to face up to those words I’d written just two and a half years ago. And yet those were mine, and there’s the time stamp, and, ugh.

Of course, the lens through which you see other people illuminates the lens through which you see yourself. Of course I would say something obnoxious about being “better than” a man of “insert job title here.” Because my value as a human being was woven into my job title. So his was, too. QED.

* * *

And then this weekend I heard myself telling the story of the night I lost my virginity. I said the nickname of the V-card bandit – a name that had easily rolled off my tongue for years – and something inside me recoiled as I said it. Now I heard a derisiveness in the moniker, a cutting tone to which I’d been deaf before. I don’t think I’ll ever say those words again, not like that, and it’s curious to me that I once used to toss them around like a softball. Cherry Poppin’ Jew. Egads, even typing it makes me itch. Of course, Cherry Poppin’ Philosopher doesn’t have quite the same poetry to it, but hey, perhaps I no longer need to bundle humans up into tidy, clever bows. Perhaps he can simply be the guy in college that introduced me to Brad Mehldau, Ravel’s La Mer, and actual Webster’s definition sex.

But how interesting that I’m sensitive to my jerky ways of yore, and yet, I’m simply not feeling mope-a-dope as expected about the end of the “most serious” healthy relationship I’ve had in my adult life. It isn’t to say that we didn’t share good times and warm feelings for one another. But perhaps, too, already in the weeks apart I can enjoy a clarity that front-and-center does not always afford. Maybe I can see the 6H pencil sketch of a pattern around the edges of certain behaviors, certain comments. The pattern of someone not unlike the woman I used to be – a little bit angry, a lotta big judgy, and always. With. The clever.

Well, I know how I feel about some of the things I used to say back in the day. They make me blush, and not in a good way.

And so maybe this is why, when my friends ask how I’m doing, I can honestly tell them, “I’m doing great. I feel really content.”

*  *  *

Of course, there remains the pesky matter of 2010 goals! Fortunately, I am never lacking with things to do and schemes to execute. And so here we have my top five goals for February:

1. Cook nutritious meals!
2. Stay on top of the day to day, e.g., bills and clean socks and plenty of toilet paper!
3. Chuck it!
4. Meditate, downward dog, warrior 72.6, sudarshan kriya, etc.
5. Sublet the apartment for when I’m out of town

So there you have it, folks. I guess I won’t be marrying that boy from Ohio after all. And while I’m deeply at peace with this …

I still feel a little guilty about depriving my teammates of an opportunity to scrimmage in Tampa against those two other schools oh so many years ago.

I’m sorry, ladies.  Let me know if you want me to cook you up a nutrient-dense dinner.

xo

2010 Goals

I’ve spent the past several weeks working on 2010 marketing goals for one of my clients.  However, it didn’t occur to me to leverage the same goal definition and prioritization methodology on my personal goals until a couple of weeks ago.  So while I don’t have the time to expose my algorithm for how I came up with these, here’s my goals for next year — with quasi-confidential information obscured.

Yep, I’m moving in with my boyfriend, code named “Pablo” to protect the innocent.  I have never completely shared a space with a romantic partner in my entire life, and I suspect that this is going to be a unique and oftentimes stressful experiment (though not unwelcome) (okay, relationships are not experiments, but still).

And living with someone means I am going to have to rewire lots of practically hard-coded programs, such as

• dressing like a slob
• eating like a slob
• putting myself first 100% of the time

The mental calculus is different when optimizing for “us” as opposed to “me”; since I only recently learned how to optimize for me, it’s going to be interesting to see how I react to the whole cohabitation thing (and all that it entails).  Wish me luck — and let me know if you know of any reasonably priced one bedroom apartments within walking distance from the Empire State Building / PATH train / Amtrak / Stumptown coffee.

Of course, while the three big picture goals are going to, on the balance, consume my attentions for the year, by changing the timeframe and breaking things down on a quarterly basis, my goals look nominally different:

It is very important to me to not forget the fundamentals of meditation, yoga, and healthy flexitarian eating (and concomitant soul-soothing joy of making oneself a hearty meal), even in the hubbub of all my goings-on-about-universe.  Speaking of which, one of my unwritten goals for next year is to

Be Better

which necessarily means I must

Do Less

which means I must

• Stop raising my hand and/or volunteering for things
• Grow increasingly comfortable with non-achievement
• Value myself as a being-unto-herself

If I cannot accommodate this, then I will forever need to keep “tasks” such as “Go on dates with Pablo” on my to-do list.  And instead of naturally and automatically having down time to enjoy the company of myself and those I love, I will need to “program” this time in.  Sure, it’s great to demarcate boundary lines of “me” time — and even once I no longer overextend-n-overachieve I am sure I will keep this up — but the deeper, more fundamental challenge that I am journeying towards surmounting is no longer seeing myself and valuing myself for the things that I do, rather than, the human that I am.

So, do less.  Be better.  And until then, don’t forget to do something fun and interesting and new each week with the people that I love.

Changing the optimization timeframe once again, here’s my January goals:

I’ve got a secret project there at the bottom that, knock on wood, will be non-secret by quarter’s end.  And you can help out with my other goals, too:

• Know anyone who wants to rent a desk? I’ve got extra space in my office, conveniently located right across from the Ace Hotel / Breslin dining room / Stumptown coffee at 29th and Broadway (Bree - can I use an ‘&’ there?).  Great for someone starting a new venture.  Especially good for entrepreneurettes.
• Know anyone who wants to sublet a studio and/or find a pied-a-terre? I’ve got a freshly painted studio at 32nd and Fifth that I will definitely not be using during the middle of the week — one of my clients needs me on-site in another state.  Plus, “Pablo” and I are moving in together starting March 1st, and my lease does not end until 10/1.  You do the math :)

Feel free to spread the word and have interested peeps give me a buzz at (212) 532-2405.

So that’s the score on 2010.  I’m making my goals transparent because

• that’ll keep me honest
• perhaps it’s a good example (?)
• Joan Didion, notebooks, etc.

Happy New Year, all y’all.  And yo, yo —

2009, I’mma let you finish, but 2010 is gonna be the best year of all time!

Priority check, one-two one-two

When I was nine (-teen), back-to-school time meant puttering down to the basement in the house I grew up in and sitting Indian style criss-cross-applesauce with my new school supplies splayed out in front of me. In my head, my crayons were about to attend an elaborate summer camp, and I organized them into color groups. (How this correlates to my ethnic background and standardized forms’ relationship to it is outside the scope of this post.) Oh, how I loved the cool air of that full basement, the scratchy industrial carpeting under my thighs, and those perfect brand new crayons, with tips as-yet unadulterated by circling answers, drawing parallelograms, or crafting dioramas of Tribes Of Northern Indiana (TM).

Now I am twenty-nine (plus two) and feeling that need to organize crayons goals. I’ve been inspired by a few data points, including fellow Academite Nate’s blog post re: shaking things up a bit in August:

So about the middle of August every year, I start to do an upheaval of my life from the bottom up.

and the following, from Paul Sutherland’s “6 steps to financial flow” in the May-June 2008 ish of Spirituality & Health:

Budget your time and resources to support your life and your goals in a way that is consistent with your reality and budget.

As someone who might have an addiction to activity, it’s good for me to receive this message in stereo sound (see: yesterday’s horoscope). But having recently mapped out my autumn priorities, here’s what I’ve got so far as my top three:

1. Maintain balance between incoming and outgoing funds. I have a roommate for a month, a woman from the U.K., and have turned my living room into a pseudo studio made more comfortable by gripping my twin bed back from my little sister and fashioning an ersatz daybed. And I’ve given myself permission to work only on projects that deeply engage me, as it’s increasingly impossible to motor-vate me to execute on that which does not exploit my comparative advantagii. When I throw my passions behind something, I become The Unstoppable A.N.P., and this only bodes well on the incoming-loot tip.
2. Find my home within academia. The other day I drafted a prioritized list of no less than 76 PhD programs that pique my interest (#1 Harvard Econ! #36 Stanford Learning Sciences & Technology Design! #74 Minnesota Consumer Behavior & Household Economics!). Clearly I have neither the time nor the funds to actually apply to all 76. So I’m planning informational interviews and a late-September road trip to try and find the professor(s) for whom, starting next September, I’d be a grad student grunt. The informationals, the research, the GRE, and the applying all take time, and since this is the second most important thing in my life this fall, I need to make sure I allocate my finite temporal resources accordingly, yo.
3. Own statistics. Now, the linear algebra refresher course I so naively got myself into turned out to include students that were Math ABDs and PhDs, making the experience as refreshing as Samantha’s chemical peel before Carrie’s book release party. But unlike linear algebra, my stats class meets three hours a week, not three hours a day, so I’ve got plenty of time to sharpen some pencils and work hard on this stuff (never resisting sleep when tired).

Those are the top three. As givens, I want to continue keeping technology in its place and maintaining a healthy sleeping schedule (by turning off the computer at 9 p.m.), eating healthfully (by being a nutrient-junkie pseudo-vegan most of the month and then having a buffalo-kill, so to speak, via a monthly carnivore carnival), running regularly (thrice weekly) and being compassionate & loving to myself and those close to me.

Ugh, not sure where blogging and bill paying and laundering and yoga’ing and pro-bono’ing fall in all of this. Dagnab, even when I try and prioritize and pare down I still have yards of things to do.

Though, as Carrie narrated in the aforementioned SATC episode:

That’s the key to having it all: stop expecting it to look like what you thought it was going to look like.

Maybe. Or maybe I should stop trying to have it all.

Or maybe I just want more life.

On keeping an agenda

Based on where the ink scribbles start to die down, it looks like I stopped using my physical agenda sometime in mid-March. It’s a nice one, too, happy pink leather with soft off-white paper purchased from Kate’s Paperie. However, once I discovered the functionality in Google calendar that sends reminders to your cell phone, coupled with its easy drag - and - drop of action items, I changed platforms.

Before the platform switch, though, seems I wrote down this li’l nugget:

Do all people compare the others in the waiting room of their therapists’ offices? If so, is it, “These people are so much more fucked up than me,” or is it, “Dammit, what does SHE need therapy for?”

(Maybe she needs therapy to squelch a pesky dangling preposition problem?)

Before I turn the mockputer off and execute the following algorithm

1. Determine & prioritize autumn goals
2. Deck specific action items against each
3. Map out dependencies and temporal constraints for each

I leave you with one more data point for the awesomeness of Google calendar: the fact that you can create multiple calendars with varying degrees of privacy. For example, here’s the list o’ cool things to do in mostly NYC that I call Culturati. It’s dynamically driven so if you click the “+ Google Calendar” icon in the lower right-hand corner, you can follow it.

So, I’ll see you at All-Ivy Cocktails on Thursday?

Or Kundalini yoga on Friday?

Or maybe we’ll run Park Avenue together on Saturday morning?

(Dude, can we do a GCaf lunch now??)