Hubs and I returned from ORD Sunday night: Chitown was an awesome (albeit packed) getaway. The BlogHer conference was super inspiring and Book of Mormon on Thursday night was freaking killer. The Bank of America theater was really small and cozy, so our orchestra seats were kickass. What a genius production. We also saw Million Dollar Quartet on Saturday night– pretty rockin’. I so love the theater.

So the craziest thing happened at the conference. This annual BlogHer event draws like 4,000 women attendees, and somehow I ran into an old friend from my days at feminist.org. Fucking insane, right? An act of fate, really– and we had such an amazing time catching up. Who would have guessed that we last saw each other in 2003!!! I love when random shit like that happens…

Back at the ranch, I got that Lubi daybed from CB2— the one I saw at the store a couple weeks ago. My office/guest room is coming together, with the help of my friend T and her eye for design… just in time for my parents’ visit in early September. Yup, they’re coming for five days. An eternity. I talked with them yesterday morning first thing after I woke up. And it was a bad way to start my day. My mother stresses me out to no end. She just never gets me. I mean, generally speaking, my parents are the kind who just want me to be the good little quiet and obedient Chinese girl who puts her head down and does her work. Don’t speak up, and don’t cause any trouble. Can you see why we clash so damn much?

Anyway… another thing the conference did for me: Sheryl Sandberg. Shit, she is the bomb, and so unapologetically feminist. Goddamn, someone who finally fucking groks it!! Something she said so resonated with me. It was basically: I’m not bossy: I have executive leadership skills. Damn straight, assholes! Back it up!! I know, I have mad crushes on the female power playas.

In other news, we got tickets to Funny or Die Oddball Fest at Shoreline in September. Dave Chappelle, Flight of the Conchords… it’s going to be good.

John and I are on detox. I started following a coworker’s daughter– she’s a nutrition/fitness blogger. Shit. I went to Sprouts last week and bought some ridiculous $12 jar of nut butter (Nutzo brand), plus trendy crap like almond milk, chia seeds, and goji berries. I dunno what this expensive shit is, but whatever, I’m just going to follow the program blindly. Last weekend, I made some “overnight oats.” The health fanatics online were raving about that stuff like it was deep-dish pizza or something. So I made it, soaked that slop overnight, had it the next morning, and it was disgusting. I forced myself to eat it, and then I got a tummy ache. Was in bed with the heating pad on for 3 hours. But I’m a stubborn ass. I didn’t want to throw it out, so I had the remainder of that gunk the next morning. It tasted better! Still not the same as pizza but edible. I figure once I wean my system off junk (at the moment, I’m cramming Cheetos down my piehole), I’ll eventually train my body to enjoy this bird food.

Ugh, I’m in such a foul mood this morning. Yesterday when I got home, Remy wasn’t in her usual spot by the couch. I looked for her in the house, no where. I always fear the worst now that she’s so damn old. After a few seconds of panic, I found her outside in the yard– eating her own shit. What. the. fuck? She never did this before. Aging has made her lose her frickin’ mind. Then she has this elbow sore that’s been bleeding all week. It’s like this weird open wound/hole within a callus. I’ve been slopping on the Neosporin for days, but I’m taking her in to the vet today.

John and I have been in Wyoming this past week. We head home today. But wow, what a wondrous, magical destination this is. I don’t believe in God, but shiit, if I did, this place would definitely qualify as “God’s Country.” You must add it to your list. Completely mind blowing.

That said, the place could use a few more Asians. At the rodeo, people looked at me like they’d never seen an Asian cowgirl (or at least an Asian wearing a western hat and boots?). Yup, look long and hard y’all, because I’m the real deal!! Haha!

We’ve had an awesome time… we kayaked, hiked, chased after wildlife (we sighted TWO bears, bison, elk, moose, marmots, bald eagles, antelope, etc.), binged ourselves silly… I took an Intro to Rodeo class on Wednesday before we hit the Jackson Hole Rodeo. Shit, I have uncovered my calling with barrel racing and roping. My horse Chocolate was an uber speed demon. I felt like I was launching off a rocket every time he rounded a barrel!! Too insanely fun! I am going to be harassing our cowboy (grazing expert) at work to no end after I get back…

What else. On Saturday, we went mountain biking for the first time ever. Teton Village has a new Mountain Bike Park (genius: the mountains are used for skiing in winter, then mountain biking in summer), so we got all decked out in the getup. Fuck, I felt like an invincible superhero. We took the ski lift up and then it was just crazy downhill coasting. We just did the beginner trails, but even those were pretty challenging. We were flyin’ down the trails: it was simultaneously scary and thrilling. Hubster was really getting into it, zipping through and skidding around all the turns. Guess we’re adventure seekers after all. I’m going miss this place!

In other news, a former coworker is a FB friend, and she recently posted a pic of her 6 y/o daughter wearing a t-shirt that read, “Hooters Girl in the Making.” And the accompanying post said, “Yes, I am THAT mom.” Annoying. I’m going to have to unfriend her ass.

Oh man, I’ve been up to all kinds of madness. The bday party already feels so long ago, I can barely remember what the hell happened. It was a good time, but the details are blurry now. 🙂 And work has been insane the last couple of weeks: our site databases kept getting hacked, and the techs took for fucking ever to identify/fix the security loopholes. In the interim, I had to create a shitload of workarounds. Plus, I had a work presentation Wednesday night, and then department summer events are kicking in… ugh, ugh, ugh. I like to be busy, but shiit, I’m going to give myself UTI with all this nonstop bullshit… Gotta start pre emptively downing the cranberry juice!!

John and I flew in from Seattle this morning. We had an awesome trip hanging with our buds. I learned a new song for the uke: The Show by Lenka. I think I can get it to a decent level fairly soon… Seattle weather was incredible: sunny, clear, beautiful! Per our usual m.o., we binged on rich, delish foods, chased it all down with booze (I’m onto gin cocktails now), and gave ourselves food coma. When we weren’t out of commission, we checked out Bainbridge Island, walked around some of the lil’ hoods, took the new pup to a monster dog park, the boys went to a Boeing tour (I’m doing that next time), the gals squeezed in some shopping (of course) followed by a Chinese foot massage… Good times!

So last week I learned of a new hair coloring trick: hair chalk. Yes, it sounded simple enough. Color chunks of hair using pastels. As usual, I did my due diligence: read up online and watched YouTube vids. Seemed super easy. Went out and bought myself a fun Smurfy blue.

The next morning, thinking I only needed ten minutes to get this show on the road, I was sadly mistaken. First, the blue streaks went onto my hair rather easily. But the blue powder also adhered easily to my fingers and the bathroom sink, floor, my shirt, everywhere…. yes, I know chalk is very powdery, but I didn’t anticipate this level of mess. None of this was mentioned or shown in the YouTube vids!!

By the time I’d gotten to the office, my fingers were blue, and I had chalk on the back of my shirt, not to mention all around my neck. Yes, I looked like a jaundice case but blue. Or a bruised/battered person.

And that was only the beginning to my Friday. Later that morning, our site database at work got hacked. Again. Yup, for the third time in seven days. Tech support was taking forever to restore my shit, so I spent the rest of the day creating workarounds to my dynamic webpages. By the time I’d left the office, I had to go buy groceries for my birthday party the very next day (John’s office move ran into its own share of snags). Errands, cleaning, laundry. Yup, so I had to get my shit done. Made two dishes for the party.

The next morning, at 5 am, in my quasi-sleep state, my left thumb rubbed the bottom of my ring finger expecting to meet my wedding ring. Nope. Wasn’t there, and immediately, I opened my eyes. I turned to my nightstand and patted the surface in the dark. No ring. Got out of bed and started searching the usual spots: bathroom, high boy, everywhere. Ten minutes later, I started to panic because I had NO recollection of removing my ring at all. The day before was so damn frazzling as I tried to get shit back online and deal with my Smurf illness. Ugh. So I started rummaging like crazy, and John woke up to the commotion. He started helping me search. Nothing. I then went to the office to see if I had taken it off at my desk. NOTHING. Fuck!! I was REALLY starting to freak out… I dunno: sentimental value I guess. I’ve had it since 2002.

Returned home at 7 am, and I was on the verge of a meltdown. My mind was blazing ahead thinking about how my party was ruined because I was going to be so pre-occupied, and then minutes later, Bubbey came over and said he had a bday present!! Thank fucking god. I dunno how it was in the bed, but that’s where he found it. Shiit, could I have taken it off in my sleep? I have no fucking idea. Lucky for him, that ONE move got him out of the doghouse for skirting nearly all his duties for my bday party.

My party later that day went well. But shiit hosting people is a ton of work. So much cleaning involved. But we had a great time. Interestingly, someone quizzed us:

1. What’s your favorite animal and why?
2. What’s your second favorite animal and why?
3. How do you describe the ocean?
4. You wake up and are on an island. What do you do/feel?
5. You are suddenly in a room with just four walls, one containing a nail.

Did you take the quiz? I’ll interpret your answers in the next posting. 🙂

What else? On Sunday, I was back on Sugar. Damn beotch horse (but she sure is pretty). I sweated my brains out riding that unruly horse. Shiit, when she’d run, she’d run fast and take very tight turns (I swear she was trying to throw me off). I’ve transitioned into my real cowboy boots now, so those pointed toes sure came in handy sliding my boots back into the stirrups as Sugar thrashed me around. But hell if I will be outlasted by a horse…

I did come off of her that afternoon with my shirt completely drenched. Scary and yet oh so thrilling. Am I gonna become an adrenaline junkie? It’s possible. 🙂

Last month, I had an informational interview last week with a guy, with whom John used to work briefly. Now, the guy C works for a personality testing/professional development company. Who even knew those workplaces existed?? He was SUPER cool. We clicked instantly, and I would work for him in a second. Unfortunately, at the time of our meeting, he (and HR) thought the current vacancies were a step down for me, but he promised to pass my deets along to some contacts. And in the meantime, he’s offered to hook me up with inside access to all the assessments! Major score, right??

So today, several weeks later, he followed up with me on the contacts and he emailed me my first set of test results. I gotta say: I come across totally boring (middle-of-the-road!!) and rather ill-equipped for leadership roles (which is ok, but that kinda conflicts with some other tests I have done elsewhere that say I’d be a really good leader). Oh well, I’m just adding this to my collection of data. Fortunately, the bigger news is that the Web Manager is open to speaking with me about the web producer role… maybe this will be my in!!! Muhahahaha. I could really use a change of scenery right about now. Cross your fingers for me!

In other news, last week was rough. Truthfully, I think it was a combo of a bunch of things: the life story assignment, a meeting with asshole at work, more vision plan project bullshit, Remy choking (again), I got an email from my former manager that just made me miss him (they’re in Berlin now), and then a bunch of friends are grappling with some serious life shit…

After a weekend of gaining fresh perspective, I’m almost completely pulled back together this week. I think. 😉 Like I said before, vivacity is making a comeback. And Remy is doing better. John calls her the furry python now, because apparently she likes to swallow things whole. He is also convinced that she’s trying to commit suicide since last week was the second time this choking thing has happened. Really, the whole incident was straight out of the movies: I was on the phone with my dad, super frustrated, trying to provide iPhone tech support (My father never remembers where the “home” button is!!) Then amidst the commotion, Remy ate a mini chicken wing that fell out as John was mixing stuff in a bowl in the kitchen. She swallowed it whole, spun around a few times, and then abruptly fell over with vacant eyes. John got the drumstick to go down, but shiit, between my father and Remy, I’m going to have a fucking heart attack. For now, the good news is, dad’s iPhone stuff is all working, and Remy is alive!! Whew!

I’m off today: chilling at home and doing some homework. The teach sent us these quotes, which I thought were pretty damn good:

“Our lives improve only when we take chances — and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” — Walter Anderson

“The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else — we are the busiest people in the world.” –Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

My Uncover Your Calling class continues to be way intense. Last week we each got 15 minutes to tell our “life story.” I was a mess. I saw my therapist earlier at 4p that day. I cried during our meeting: I lamented that I recently realized I was projecting my parents’ style of quasi-conditional love (tied to expectations) on to John– always being super critical and focused on things that should be done better… Basically, I was perpetuating a form of emotional abuse…

My therapist brought up self-acceptance and how I should learn to feel emotions without having to DO anything about them. I don’t really understand that concept. I feel like I have confidence in my strengths, but I’m always obsessing over my weaknesses, because I want to be better. I dunno: I just can’t seem to find that balance between self-acceptance and self-improvement. I have a fear of complacency and stagnation. Ultimately, I suppose the point of her statement is that I have to somehow find a way to let go of things or circumstances that I cannot change. So this whole debacle at work: rather than feeling anger and outrage and going on my whole tirade, I should consider just feeling sad at the loss of my manager and friend and sad about the demise of a once awesome workplace. But I dunno: why feel anything without tying it to action? Seems like just sitting and being aware of those emotions is not really useful. Shrug. Then again, I suppose trying to take action is equally useless.

So yeah, later that same day, I did my life story. What a strange thing to encapsulate 3+ decades into a few minutes of key moments/stories. I was super stressed about it, just because I wanted to well, select the right content to tell a story with essence, you know? Also, I knew I was going to lose my shit talking about my parents and my brother. It’s so lame and all day I kept trying to train myself to NOT cry, but fuck, no more than TEN seconds into my turn, and the waterworks just went on full blast. Truth be told, I always was a crybaby as a kid. Seriously, I cried A LOT– about everything and anything. And I was like 100x more serious than I am now. Imagine that.

Otherwise, the Uncover Your Calling class is insightful. It’s a shitload of work, but I am trying to believe in the process and hope that I will reach some clarity soon. I mean, the exercises are interesting and thought-provoking. My mind just feels tired. I’m sleeping a lot again on the weekends.

I did gain some perspective last weekend. My best mother friend called: she was talking about other things, but she kept saying, “Life is short.” And in my heart, I know that. So I’m going to stop pretending like I don’t have choices. (Practically everything John and I do is about creating a life with freedom and choice!) And this might just have to be a time when I stop trying to test/prove myself, and I step away and just get back to what’s good.

In other news, I’m going to start eating into that PTO stash soon enough. Seattle in mid-June and then Cowboy Country at the end of June!! John surprised me by suggesting a week in Jackson Hole, WY!! Yee haw! He actually says he needs a vacation. I am so excited. We’re going to check out Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. I am so stoked to live out my Legends of the Fall dream. United Air miles, baby! And I’m going to use my Lounge passes too.

Um, in case you are curious, here are my current resources. Yep, I’m trying the multi-pronged approach. We’ll see where it leads!

John Maxwell Plan for Personal Growth

Dale Carnegie Training Apps

Uncover your Calling – Finding Work that Fits

Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher