Numine.com: Seattle working-class blog

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Fun and good times with the snowshoeing. And... mew... can we go to Banya Five when next visit? Mew?

you guys seem to know / appreciate quite a bit about food. ever thought of writing reviews?

Two Dogs

by Kat

Last Friday, while I was drinking an end-of-the week martini with Jeff, Justin was attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Ballard. He was there for a nursing psychology class, but just to further the irony, he went out for a glass of wine afterwards with a friend, while I guzzled sake at home to ward off the effects of a killer work week.

None of this, of course, was intended to poke fun at the alcoholics. Our plans had been laid before Justin's last minute AA assignment. That's just how it ended up. It turned out to be all the better for both of us-- I got the week out of my system and Justin got another assignment out of the way.

What was really interesting were the stories Justin brought back from the meeting. There were over 40 people in attendance, a large number of whom were phenomenal speakers. I'm sure many of them would credit the years they've spent sharing their experiences in front of a crowd. Justin said they spoke about learning to live strongly and confidently, about their experiences coming back to life, and about their thoughts on the 12-step program.

Many of them didn't subscribe to the AA regimen, even though they acknowledged that it had saved their lives. They valued the community and solidarity more than they valued the sponsors and the spiritual aspects of the program. One woman credited Old Growth forests as her "higher power." I love the Pacific Northwest.

Justin shared with me a number of anecdotes and mottos, all of which I've forgotten at the moment except one, which is the subject of this post.

A man stood up in the middle of the meeting and shared his name and his story. He said, "I once heard someone explain that you've got two dogs in you... a positive dog and a negative dog... and whichever one you feed is the one that grows bigger." The man went on to explain that when he started AA he was extremely negative but now he's found that he's a much more healthy person because he can find the positive in anything.

He said he recently attended the funeral of his second child, a grown woman. The first had died of crib death years before. He said that at her funeral, he kept reminding himself that it could have been so much worse. He didn't say what happened-- just that she died young and happy, with a nice house, a good job, and a man that loved her. He said he was glad that it had been quick and she hadn't suffered. He though it so much better that she'd died at the top of her game, at a happy time, than if she'd gone out in misery.

Now that takes courage.

I've found myself thinking a lot about the two dogs over the last several days. But I don't like to imagine having dogs inside of me (it might be a little cramped), so in my metaphor they are flames. A positive flame, which burns brightly and clearly, and a negative flame, that sucks away the light. Whichever flame I feed is the one that grows.

I've been struggling not to feed the negative flame, in part because it's that dark, dreary time of year that sets me off, and in part because I've had to handle some baggage lately. Some my recent experiences have been learning to deal with a lack of sensitivity in others and in myself. I've had friendships struggle because of it. I even lost a few. I've dealt with insensitive clods at work and have even made career decisions because of it. And, unfortunately, I've had to deal with a lot of sophomoric bullshit spewed forth from the mouths of people who apparently make themselves feel better by demeaning others. I've overreacted, I've underreacted, I've, quite frankly, forgotten how to react except by feeling exceptionally bitter.

In short, I've lost a lot of faith in people. And I've lost a lot of faith in myself. I'd hoped that I'd be able to live my life mindfully as an adult, but this negativity has taken hold of my emotional wellbeing too many times over the last few months.

The saddest part, however, is that it's really all cerebral. In reality, I have absolutely nothing to feel angry about. I love my job, I love my fiance, I love my apartment, and I love all the new people I've been spending time with. But it's like I said before about how writing/blogging is easier when feeling down... in the same respect, it's easier to throw a bone to the negative dog than the positive one.

At some point, you've got to decide to grow the part of you that's good for you. Even if you feel hurt, or betrayed, or just insulted that the world is full of such petty shit. Even if, like our friend at AA, you're at your daughter's funeral.

It's the time of year when I need to remind myself to feed the flame that makes me who I am-- the one that grows my passion for life, rather than devours it. And likewise (in the other metaphor), it's time to starve the pitt bull of apathy and derision. Pitt Bull of Doom. Err, bah... whatever.

So thank you, Mister. I never met you but you inspired me. I'm ready to start being positive...

...I just have to get through tax season first.

Posted on February 05, 2007 @ 9:50 PM | 6 comments

Comments:

Amazing entry. Very raw. I think you are going to be ok as you see what the issues are and work towards them. remember the blessings you have as you articulated in the last paragraph. Sometimes the reminders help.

running42k, at 10:43 AM, February 06, 2007

thanks, kat. sometimes we all need to smack ourselves in the face. in a good way.

By rebecca, at 6:08 PM, February 06, 2007

Why are you thanking me?

But yeah, I'm all about the good smacks. :-)

By Kat, at 7:05 PM, February 06, 2007

Apparently the new trend these days is to smack people in the face instead of giving knucks.

/ me slaps myself and Kat in the face

Rachel, at 10:48 PM, February 06, 2007

Haha, yep it is, Rachel!

*slaps rachel in the face*

By Kat, at 6:10 PM, February 07, 2007

*slaps running42k, rebecca, kat, and rachel in the face*

Because everyone else was doing it...

By LazyLightning, at 9:36 AM, February 08, 2007

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Something's Missing

by Kat

Justin and I make a tasty and simple pasta dish every now and then. It calls for one onion, a jar of vodka cream sauce (or homemade for those ambitious enough), two sliced and cooked sausages, and penne. Whip up the sauce with the sausage and onion, slap it all together and MM-mm, fast and easy dinner! We call it Trader Joe's Pasta since I learned the recipe from the Trader Joe's sample girl when my old work used to have their offices right above the store.

Anyhow, we were at Whole Foods looking for a quick dinner fix the other day when we came across Silver Platter pasta sauce on sale. You know, it was stacked at one of the aisle-ends like they do when they want to get your attention. I didn't even know that Silver Platter made pasta sauce, but it turns out they do... and vodka cream sauce nonetheless. I do wonder, however, if there was a reason that the sauce was on sale. It seems that, well, something was missing...

Need a closer look?

Yep, that's some calorie-free pasta sauce there, folks. And lemme tell you, it was taaaasteee. :D

In other news, I had my first guitar lesson last Thursday and it was fabulously fun. The only nerve wracking part about it was being late-- it took me half an hour to go about 11 miles from my house in Wallingford to my instructor's home in Ballard. The Fremont bridge being under construction has terminally f*cked things up. Next Thursday, if the weather is at all decent, I'm biking with my guitar bag on my back. Guh.

My instructor, John, is very patient and very experienced-- two good things he has going for him as a teacher. He's so calm it's almost creepy, but I suppose I'll get used to that as I've gotten used to Justin's dad being eerily calm.

During the first lesson, I played a short piece for John to show him my technique. Because I knew absolutely nothing about how to properly hold and strum a guitar, I was prepared to completely dismantle the way I'd been practicing. It turns out, of course, that I was doing it completely wrong-- but now I feel so much better. Today I took my guitar in to the shop to have the strings adjusted (the grooves in the nut needed to be deepened) and pick up a music stand (it pretty much sucks craning your neck to see a book on the coffee table).

I learned to read music many years ago, after playing Suzuki method piano in elementary school, clarinet in middle school band, and singing in high school concert choir. I gather that a lot of people go into playing guitar not knowing how to read sheet music and I'm almost jealous of them. Guitar annotations are so different than "normal" annotation that I'm much more comfortable playing things written out in clefs than I am on frets. This isn't a huge problem, since I've been playing things from a book that uses the former, but I'd like not to have to re-learn everything! I'm having a great time practicing, though, so it's not a huge complaint. :)

Tomorrow we run 6 miles for marathon training (Justin got new shoes!) and will be joining Tom & Amy (whom we met in Glacier '06) for a Super Bowl party.

Posted on February 03, 2007 @ 7:01 PM | 0 comments