Rules of the Road and Traffic Jams

My best pal Jess has already posted about the ridiculous traffic in Gainesville since the start of the fall semester. By and large, residents are prepared for the influx of student vehicles, but this month has been horrific. Construction near the university is incomplete. The traffic lights are not timed porperly. The gridlock has been a nightmare.

What makes this worse is that so many drivers seem oblivious to the rules of the road. Everyone is in a hurry, and it becomes all about "me, me, me." Courtesy, sense, and patience are sadly lacking in today's drivers who think nothing of blocking intersections even though they have nowhere to go. Tuesday afternoon, I headed east on University Ave with the intention of turning north on NW 17 St. A lovely blonde, yakking on her cell phone in a new blue Nissan decided to pull across the intersection on a green (maybe yellow) light, despite the fact that there was nowhere to go. The intersection was totally blocked. When the cross traffic light turned green, no one could move. She shrugged her shoulders at the annoyed drivers and continued to chat. Must be nice to be so free of concern for others.

This is aggravating. No one should block an intersection. It's a moving violation. It causes more problems and doesn't get the offender ahead of the game. It would be one thing if it were only the blonde in the Nissan, or the idiot in the shiny black truck with the Penn State plates on the front.

What makes matters worse is that our RTS busses are the worst offenders. In the past three days, I have sat through at least five extra light changes because an RTS bus decided to pull out and block the intersection. This has happened at Buckman & University and at Gale Lemarand & Museum where the mess was so bad that traffic watied through 3 extra light changes because of a bus. There's no way to get around a bus when your light turns green. When traffic is jammed up as badly as it is around the university these days, then professional drivers should have an obligation to abide by the rules of the road and not think that blocking traffic is actually going to help them stay on schedule. Hey, RTS, the University of Florida subsidizes these routes. How about a little consideration for those of us who are paying your bills?

Although I hate getting stuck behind a bus, I am a proponent of mass transit and its benefits. These drivers should be most attuned to our traffic problems, driving laws, and how they contribute to the mess we are dealing with. These drivers have a responsibility to do things right, and they are not doing that. They are setting a bad example and making a bad situation worse.

There is really no excuse for the traffic mess that we are in now. It should not take 45 minutes to get off campus. Where are the traffic cops who are so willing to stake out residential areas like Suburban Heights? Why are our police agencies so unwilling to issue traffic violation tickets in the university area?

Gainesville does not have the infrastructure to support the traffic we have, and until that is addressed, nothing will get better. Maybe it's time to address the real problems and stop spending money on "traffic calming" circles and speed bumps. I don't see any of those things improving our North-South or East-West access.

Can't Sleep Tonight

"No one on their deathbed ever said, 'I wish I spent more time at work.'"

Although I doubt that there is much research to support this statement, intuitively I have to believe that it is true. After all, the vast majority of us have jobs that make the world run, but individually are not the driving force in any major world event. I know that my job fits into this category, although there are some individuals who have benefited from my expertise, abilities, or sympathies in a way that moves them along, helps them, and gives them the opportunity to make the most of their own resources.

This week has been hell on wheels. The start of the university school year. Old problems that need to be "fixed". New issues with pressing deadlines. Programs for new students. Office issues that need to be resolved RIGHT NOW that cannot possibly be addressed until the furor dies down.

Somewhere, in all this, there is family. A young son who has "started college" courtesy of dual enrollment. A DH who runs a busy business and needs support. A Dad who is facing major, life changing surgery, and my hair stylist, who is being patient with me for having missed an appointment when she could have scheduled another client. Oh, most important, my missed lunch with my long time friend Jess, but I promise we'll get back on track soon.

Sometimes it is hard to balance it all. Work has demands that are sometimes seasonal, but always pressing. These needs weigh on me, as they are now, even when I am not at work. I know that I am not alone in this. There are probably a lot of other university people lying awake tonight thinking about the things that need to happen tomorrow.

Is it worth it? Some days I wonder, but tonight I have to say it is. DS is with a trusted friend. DH is sleeping comfortably, now that I have gotten out of the bed and stopped thrashing around trying to sleep.

I have a wonderful team of people to work with. These things will get done. I want to thank two people, who will probably never see this blog for their support: my wonderful Program Assistant, Kanitra...the most wonderful human being on this planet; and my student assistant, Jose, who is so dependable and supportive that I could not possibly do it without him. You two are the best things that have ever happened to me.

Tomorrow I will take care of the things that are keeping me awake tonight. I will wake up on time (I hope) and get back to work. Tomorrow night there will be time for family, and this weekend we will head to the beach.

Today, it would be easy to believe that the office is taking too much from me, but I have to look at what I am giving and how that factors into my life equation. Today, life is hectic and demanding, but the potential benefits (for the students) are worth the effort on my part. I signed up for this knowing that there would be people who would need my help. That's my mission. Next week I will take an afternoon off, the family will be back "on track" and life will resolve into normalcy [whatever that is].

I'm not really spending too much time at work, I am simply attending to the tasks that I feel are important. Now, if I could just go to sleep.

We Are the Media

Today I received an email suggesting that the media are sensationalizing the war in Iraq and Israel and other things. That's a big surprise. The link I followed from this email warned of misrepresentation by the Rueters News Agency, and showed a number of apparently staged photos meant to convince me that what Reuters is doing is both new and immoral. Maybe it's immoral, but it is hardly new. War correspondents have ALWAYS arranged their photographs to be compelling. That's what being a photojournalist is all about.

That doesn't mean that it's OK to send us trumped up descriptions of what's really happening. We'd like to be properly informed, wouldn't we? Does it make you angry to think that the media are the ones directing public opinion? Would you be shocked if it were suggested that you might also be guilty?

In this day of Internet access, we are all the media. What we say, what we send to others, and what we propose is fact gets passed along in our emails to each other every day. And if it is true that if you know 7 people you can connect to everyone else in the world, then the world needs to be on its toes.

In the past week, I have received emails asking me to look for the missing daughter of someone's deli manager, prompting me to stop shopping at Target because they don't support veterans, urging me to see the Mars spectacular this month, warning me of an 809 area code scam, and yet another message promising that Microsoft will send me a substantial check just for forwarding this email. All of these messages came to me from trusted family members and friends. Not one of them is rooted in reality.

It's pretty easy to get emotionally involved in "doing the right thing". But the forwarding of false information is not necessarily the right thing to do. Before you send off a message to everyone in your address book, please take a few minutes to determine if what you are sending along has merit. Sending along random emails without checking on their veracity could do much more harm than good. Crying "wolf" too often numbs us all.

Did you know that the man who first started the Target email has retracted his message and stated:

"I made a mistake on this one, and I've learned a hard lesson — that's for sure. What started out as a message for the members in our organization has turned into a hate-type thing. I never wanted to start any national boycott. I just wish it would all stop.

"Some people have used my words and perpetuated lies. It's sad that some of these people would use veterans as a way to push their own political views. I've sent out a retraction, and no one pays any attention."

Snopes.com is a good place to start. Before you send out that message meant to save your family and loved ones, be sure you are a responsible journalist.

There is real news out there and there are real ways for us to get involved and help. It would be a terrible tragedy if we missed out on the opportunity to solve a real problem because we have seen so much nonsense come across our screens that we no longer recognize the truth. If you have a truly urgent message, then please let us know. If you have just received a message that sounds good, please check it out before forwarding it. This is an important responsibility in the fight for truth, justice, and the American way.

Too Much Stuff

Too much stuff. There's just too much stuff.
It'll hang you up, dealing with too much stuff.
~Delbert McClinton

My husband and I have been married for a little more than five years. He was 50 at the time, and I'm not far behind him. He lived in this awesome house that he built (well, OK, was still building in some ways), and I lived in the burbs with my young son. We knew there would be some challenges in combining our households. I'm a city girl, he's an earthy, do-it-yourself kind of guy. We intended to sort through all of our mountains of stuff before I moved to his home, then get married, and live happily ever after.

Shortly before the wedding, we bought an adorable 1945 house as a rental property. We're both crazy about buildings and architecture and projects. This was truly the shadow of things to come. We spent several months painstakingly restoring our new property, finishing up with three weeks to spare before the wedding. Fortunately, the caterers were friends. The wedding was wonderful. Life was good.

Then, it was time to move my stuff to his house. I have to say we handled it pretty well - we didn't kill each other. But the burden of stuff started to become undeniably apparent that day. It seems we are both packrats - er, I mean collectors. Everyone in my family is a collector. My brothers own more cars than you can count, British cars, muscle cars, weird and interesting cars. They own lots of other motorized toys like boats, too. Some of them even float. It made me feel better knowing that all these other people collect things like we do.

The stuff we have collected along the path of life has become a burden. It's everywhere, and dealing with it becomes so overwhelming that it's easier to ignore it and let it continue to accumulate. I take time off from work, promising myself that I will divest myself of significant quantities of stuff that will make a difference. Hours after sorting through boxes, I am paralyzed by guilt, indecisiveness, and nostalgia.

My dream is to have a home so uncluttered, so clean, and so absolutely Spartan that a lost set of car keys can remain lost only for the few moments it takes to make a 360 degree sweep of a room. That anything out of place stands out so clearly that it cannot remain lost for long. Reality is different.

I have to say that the stuff my husband has collected is infinitely cooler -- although a lot bigger -- than my stuff. He has wood cook stoves, enameled and fancy. He has wood burning heating stoves, black and ornate. He has gigantic beer signs from the sides of midwestern farmhouses. Oh, he has an eye for the collectible, the nostalgic, the huge. My stuff is smaller. I am attracted to shiny, colorful objects. I own way too much depression glass, ruby glass, and bits and pieces of antique Christmas ornaments. Not to mention the enormous collection of Hallowe'en stuff collected in the years when my son's annual party was the talk of the town.

Then there is the guilt collection. What to do with my mother's wedding gown? Not that anyone I know could fit into it even if they wanted to wear a 50+ year old dress. It has history and meaning. I have a ton of stuff that was my mother's. Some of it is meaningful, a few pieces are valuable, but I am somehow caught in a web of guilt that prevents me from disposing of it. I would give it to my nieces and nephew, let it become their burden, but they don't even have their own homes yet. Where would they put it?

Our kids don't want this stuff, neither does the Smithsonian. Family history is cool, and hard to come by in a day when we are all so mobile. Appreciating the things of our past is cool, too. There are many times that I yearn for the simpler life this stuff supposedly represents. But I have to tell you that carrying all this stuff around for years and years does not make my life simple. It takes up a ton of space, and weighs on me daily.

I'm not sure what it is that made my generation reach out and grab all the old stuff our parents had discarded. We are not alone. This is the song I hear all my peers singing.


I have a new plan. I am going to start putting stuff on Ebay. For every item I sell, I will include a "free gift." Oh, you bought a camera lens? Well, here's your free wood burning stove to go with it! You bought the depression glass? Here's your free vintage tractor! I figure that this way I will get rid of twice as much stuff as if I had a yard sale.

My husband is encouraging me. He wants to let go of this stuff, too. We cannot wait to be free of the mountains of stuff that we have spent so much of our lives aquiring. Less is more.

As Others See Us

My mother was fond of quoting the Scottish poet Robert Burns when she was trying to make a point. In his poem, "To a Louse," this word master says:

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

[Translation for anyone who doesn't happen to understand old gaelic: "I wish some Power the gift would give us to see ourselves as others see us!"]

When my mother was making this point, I usually didn't want to hear it. I would respond with a roll of my eyes and a dramatic sigh, knowing that my mother simply didn't get it. It's ironic that my son and nieces respond the same way now that I understand what my mother meant.

Think back to a time when you realized that someone had a very different view of you than the one you had. I can remember talking with a friend about needing a black skirt for some event. She had one, I did not. She was not going to be at the event, so I asked if I could borrow her skirt. I should mention here that I was always a skinny kid, and stayed that way for many, many years. I knew I had put on a few pounds, but was confused when she said "I didn't think we were the same size." My first reaction was to think that she wasn't THAT much bigger than me. My perception changed when I tried on her skirt. Sure enough, it was way too snug to wear comfortably.

That may have been the moment when I realized what my mother was trying to say. It's important not only that we have our own unique identity, but also that we realize how the rest of the world sees us. This has tremendous implications for our relationships and our future, whether professionally or personally.

There is a very simple tool used in counseling to help clients with this issue. Johari's window allows individuals to examine how they percieve themselves, how they want to be perceived by others, how they think others perceive them, and finally how others really perceive them. That last piece is the tricky one. How do others really perceive us?

I'd like, somehow, to use this tool to help a woman I work with. She is mid-40s, and has always made a dramatic fashion statement. I swear that several years ago she showed up in my office in an almost professional but too short skirt, and that when she sat across from me I was seeing sequined underwear. Her propensity for dressing "sexy" is well known. It must be said that she also had a reputation for competence. She was effective in her position. For reasons unknown, she fell out of favor with the higher ups, was demoted, and went into a tailspin. Anyone who would listen was subject to a long, involved tale of woe. I suggested that her best course of action might be silence. Take the high road. While we were on her side, her very public display of humiliation was emabarrassing to most of us, and was certainly not helping her plight. Worse, her actions only served to publicize her problems. Thirty some job applications later, she has not had a single interview.

After a while, things died down, as they tend to do. She was absent from a few monthly meetings, her department was respresented otherwise. A few weeks ago, she showed up at my door to introduce a new employee. It took me nearly a minute to recognize her.

Her hair was greasy, with long gray roots. Her jeans were slashed and torn. She was wearing only a midi tank top over her protruding, middle-aged, pierced belly.

This week, she showed up at a huge meeting looking just the same way. Everyone at the conference table made eye contact with someone else, then quickly dropped their eyes in embarrassment. Within 20 minutes of the meeting's end, phones were ringing. "Is it truly this bad?' Yup, it sure is.

What is going on here? First, she always preferred the mutton-dressed-as-lamb look. When she was viewed as competent, people pretended to overlook her idiosyncrasies in fashion, although they were still the subject of discussion. But her very public diatribe about being treated badly changed the way she was viewed. Instead of being seen as a competent person looking for new challenges, she portrayed herself as damaged goods. She blew that entirely. Now, when she needs to rely on her experience to change jobs, she sabotages herself with her appearance. Her outfit today, at a more formal event, would have made Mary Quant [the creator of the mini skirt] blush. She has caused other people to see her as incompetent, foolish, and inappropriate.

Perhaps there is an issue of depression or something similar that needs to be addressed. I wish someone knew how to address it.

If this woman had the slightest idea of "how others see us" she might have a chance to save herself. As it is, every appearance she makes only makes matters worse.

If we want to be viewed a certain way - competent, professional, helpful, etc. - then it is important that we understand the requirements. This poor woman [oh, yes, I do feel sorry for her] has no clue. The way we appear is very important.

When we understand how others see us, we get a much better picture of why the world treats us the way it does.

Where Did I Go Wrong?

I thought that grilling was a man's job. I mean really, look at history. You (the woman) prepare the meat, prepare the veggies and salad, and set the table. The man builds a symmetrical pyramid of charcoal briquets, lights them afire, and claims credit for the whole dinner.

That's the way things work in my perfect little universe. The moment I lay my manicured nails on a grimy briquet, my he-man should be there to take over, arranging them the way I never could, igniting them to burn with a flame higher than any female could even want.

So where did I go wrong? When I announced grilled salmon for dinner the other night, it was with the complete expectation that DH would rise to the occasion and do the grilling. Apparently, that was not meant to be. I learned a few lessons about how to barbecue and burned all the hair off my right hand, but I wasn't all that attached to it, anyway. The skin sizzled right off the fish, but I managed to turn each filet without too much destruction and the dogs were grateful for the charred fish skin. Dogs are so easy to please.

Tonight, I announced grilled pork chops and corn. I shucked the corn, prepared it with chili and lime zest (ummm); I rubbed the pork chops with special, wonderful seasoning. I built a little pyramid of charcoal briquets, soaked them with lighter fluid and lit them my very own self. Not once did DH come out to make sure I was doing it right and not burning the house down. I totally don't get it. Doesn't he care any more?

I did learn tonight that the little vent thingy on the top of the grill is very important. DH closes it after he grills to extinguish the fire. I leave it open to burn off the crud on the grill. Apparently he closed it up after me the other night (even though he didn't cook). I did not notice this until I took the chops off the grill. Thank the gods of pork chops that there was enough heat in those coals to save us from trichinosis. Of course, I didn't mention to him that I didn't open those vents. I guess that he would have known to check for that. Maybe I will remember next time.

I read an article recently about a woman who was using the same kind of reinforcement on her husband as animal trainers use. I am wondering if DH read that article, too, and decided to turn the tables.

Just wait till I decide to grill ribs. I know he'll have to get involved then. :-)

Mastering the Fine Art of Procrastination

I've been meaning to write this for a while, but so many other things seem to get in the way. Why am I doing it now? Have I finally found that block of time with nothing else demanding my attention? Hardly. I got in late this evening, didn't get dinner started until nearly 8:30, and I have a class to finish preparing. Ironically, the class is about procrastination. I am writing this tonight because [my excuse is] it will give me a chance to think out loud.

Procrastination is not always a bad thing. If things at the "top" of our priority list never get done, there is a message there. When the things lower on the list always get done before the big things, maybe that list topper is not really our priority, but something we feel obligated to. In that case, it's a good opportunity to examine our goals and determine if the list is really a good reflection of who we are or who we want to be.

More often, procrastination is a way to avoid some necessary but anxiety producing task. For example, I need to balance my checkbook every month. I'm a control freak about that kind of thing. But accounting frustrates me; little discrepancies drive me absolutely over the edge. So on the night that I have set aside for this relatively simple task, I can usually find about a hundred other things to do. These substitute activities are almost always necessities. Laundry seems to top the list. Laundry is a mindless task, but heaven knows it doesn't do itself. So, two or three loads of laundry later, I have clean towels and underwear, I can tell myself I have been productive and accomplished something, but my checkbook remains undone.

What's wrong with that? I mean really, you have to do laundry, so it's something to cross off the never-ending to do list. The problem occurs when the checkbook remains on the edges of my consciousness. Not doing it becomes even more anxiety provoking than doing it. Somehow, past feelings of relief at finally finishing the bookkeeping are insufficient to motivate me until I am so far behind that I can't stand it any longer.

Sometimes, though, procrastination can finally become the motivator. When putting a thing off for long enough produces sufficient anxiety, even the most determined procrastinator is finally called to action. Maybe it's the thrill of making it just before a deadline, or perhaps it's the knowledge that if we don't finally move on this one thing we will be crippled in many other ways. Maybe it's just that we can't find any more excuses.

Many of my students, wonderful as they are, suffer from procrastination. It sometimes disturbs me to think that it is my responsibility to teach them how to manage this. ("Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.") Understanding what motivates each of us to put things off until the last possible moment is the key to mastering the fine art of procrastination. Each of us is wired a little differently. Some like the challenge of the deadline, others are paralyzed by the fear of failure, and some are overwhelmed by the sheer possibilities of the project and unable to find a starting point.

Perhaps the best way to manage our own style of procrastination is to understand the ways we deceive ourselves. Is it possible to look honestly at what keeps us from the things we have planned? I think so, but it takes a little effort.

If I don't do the laundry when I have something else planned, it's likely that some other family member will decide they'd like a clean towel and do a load of wash themselves. If we can stop pretending that the more mundane items on that list are equally important to those we have defined as top priorities, maybe we will find reasons to address the truly important, get them done, and find a few rewards along the way. If we can learn to master procrastination through understanding our internal motivations, perhaps we can make some strides toward a simpler, more rewarding life.

What do you put off?