maybe it was the vitamin C

I have returned from my vacation in Florida with enough serenity to allow the angrychaos world I left here fade slightly. The volume got turned down enough for me to feel I've stepped out from under the falling piano.

I went to Florida with a mission. I needed to Sort Things Out. Cause Things ain't workin right now. I had my review at my place of employment a few days before my vacation. I promised myself I wouldn't cry during it. I did positive visualization and tried every trick in the book. I convinced myself it was going to be a good experience, a way to learn more about how I could be a More Effective Employee, how to Further my Productivity. I actually thought these things. Writing those words right now makes me want to barf. But I was trying to do the best with what I had. So I went into it with a positive mind set and by the third minute I was weeping like a child.

I remember pressing the back of my head against the wall so hard that it hurt, but holding it there because it was stopping me from sobbing hysterically.

"Don't be so sensitive," she said. Why is that always the recommendation? Stop being sensitive. Get used to people treating you like shit and swallow it with a smile. Train yourself not to feel, not to be concerned with the world around you or the people in it, stop being cognizant. Be numb.

You know what I say? I don't need to stop being sensitive. You need to stop being so fucking abrasive.

Her criticisms of me were not job related, and people really have no right to judge my job performance based on character. "I have no complaints about your job performance," she said. "But you're too quiet. People find you unapproachable. People find you intimidating."

Whoa.

Let me get this straight. The small Asian men I work with are intimidated by me because I am an intelligent, six foot tall woman who speaks her mind? And this is MY problem?

I shut up and do my job. That's what I'm good at. I don't feel the need to detail my personal life at work. Maybe I've developed this mode of existence because almost every job I've had reeked of irony. I had to hide my real self to get by, had to cover the tattoos and dye the hair, had to keep my music under wraps, had to hide the writing. So if I was just quiet and did my job well, things ran smoothly.

Apparently they're not paying me to be a grants manager, they're paying me to be the local fucking jester. I should start wearing tap shoes to work, dance on my desk and recite poetry, viva voce. It's clearly become part of my job description to be entertaining.

I consider myself a very friendly person. I can pretty much talk to anybody. But I can be shy, and I often subscribe to the "don't speak unless spoken to" modus operandi. I get stage fright. So other people may assume I'm trying to be cool and aloof. Or as I've been referred to (was it affectionately?), the "icy cool indie queen." Not a crown I'd put on by choice.

Okay. So I'm too quiet, too sensitive, and not aggressive enough. I have also never missed a deadline. Ever. Even when that involves sprinting 10 blocks up hill chasing the FedEx van on foot to put a grant in by last delivery. I always smile, even when put under this ridiculous pressure.

I know everyone has pressure at work. But since I'm so damn sensitive, pre-Florida I was verging on a nervous breakdown. I cried four times a day in the bathroom. I went home from work, climbed into bed, and ate too much ice cream. I was exhausted. I felt like I'd been in a cage all day, being poked at repeatedly with a blunt stick. I seriously couldn't handle one second more. People were dropping 200 page proposals on my desk that had to be put onto the FedEx truck by 4:30. I'm running through $3.5 Million budgets, trying to find the extra $1.45 pencil throwing things off balance. And through all the stress of trying to get through this, I have to be courteous and cute, and through all the stress, they're talking to me like I'm a flaming idiot.

People with multiple letters after their name tend to assume everyone else is a moron.

To make a long story short, I left for Florida raw and bare and every nerve exposed. I simply. Couldn't. Take it. Anymore.

There's this used book store at the top of the Ave., on 45th, Twice Sold Tales. They have many cats. They also have two little windows where they display a handful of the latest books, or books on a theme (women in rock, cult fiction, Japanese history, Elvis). One window is filled with cats and cat books. I go up to 45th several times a week because that's where our proposals end up for approval, and I walk by the store on my way back to the bus. It seems every time I go, there's a book in the window that speaks to me, that was put right there just for me. It is related to a current topic I'm obsessed with (houseboats), ideas I've had (Shelter Cats), or blueprints from the Universe. It's become a game, to see what's in the window. I always buy the book. I feel it's my duty.

I informed the Universe that if it needed a good way to get a hold of me, that window was the place. I made it quite clear that directions placed in that window would be followed. So the day before I left for Florida, eyes red and swollen, stomach turning, knowing I had to leave this job but unsure how, I looked into the window and saw smack in the center Po Bronson's book, "What Should I Do with My Life?"

It's a huge book and I read it on the patio and the plane. Hungrily, like it held the answers to everything. Bronson interviewed thousands of people who have made a big life change in order to pursue a more meaningful existence. People chasing that Something lacking in their hearts, the hole their careers are not filling. One guy was knocking down six figures on Wall Street, and left to bake bread in Philadelphia. Another gave up med school to write for a local paper. A NASA engineer left to become a cop in the LA ghetto. These people looked at the money and high life, this hectic consumerism and bloodletting that was keeping them chained to stressful jobs that were making them ill, they looked and decided it wasn't enough. It wasn't their calling. So they left.

Some of the people were wildly successful. Successful meaning happy. Meaning they got what they were after. Others failed miserably and crawled back to the comfort and safety of the madness, out of boredom or unwillingness to give up the plush lifestyle they'd grown accustomed to. Others were in between, feeling they'd made and improvement in their life but it wasn't quite where they wanted to be. All of them had valuable insight. All of them gave me something to think about.

I went to Florida with a mission. I need clarity. Mostly I needed to come undone in a protected environment. To freak out on the page and examine the results. It was crazy and painful and enlightening. I sat. I decompressed. I put myself into a sensory deprivation tank made of a 70 degree patio and a giant cushy chair. My little white laptop. Iced tea. I sat. And I sat.

And I developed my Plan. It came effortlessly, unquestionably. Like the Universe handed me my script and said, "Enter stage left. Go." Now I have returned to this hellish environment slightly removed, as though the golden cellophane that is my dream is keeping the soggy shit from touching my skin. I can still see it, but the stink and stickiness can't get at me.

While in Florida, I wrote a lot. I wrote a lot of entries for my blog, too. I didn't post any of them. They didn't feel right – they felt forced. Because I was writing this casual commentary on finding Dunkin Donuts and the importance of Lou Barlow, but in reality my soul was writhing on the floor. All melodrama aside, I felt like a faker. So I stayed quiet.

As Troy Dyer pointed out, "Your bravado is embarrasing."

So here I am, writing voluminously, and although I wasn't going to write today, I was pushed to by a particularly disrespectful interchange with a faculty member. It seems their decency is inversely proportionate to the amount of letters after their name. And if they think talking to me like I'm crap on their shoe is going to get me to spend lots of time on their proposal this afternoon, they can kiss my sweet white Irish ass.

Hi.

I'm back. I've received several death threats for not updating, especially after doing this fancy over-haul of my site. Do you like the daisies? I'm pleased as punch about them. The change reflects one of my life epiphanies.

I don't want to be a rock-n-roll journalist anymore.

I accomplished all that I set out to do in that particular neck of the woods. I'm excited for my new plans. The list I created several years ago has been all crossed off. And none of it left me particularly inspired. Mostly it left me stomach sick, fearful, neurotic and full of alternating self-doubt/self-hatred.

I know, I know. I'm too sensitive.