Cat Lint

A Spring interlude in the city today, spent mostly in the park listening to Madeleine Peyroux's twinkly voice and watching the international crowd study their maps . The pigeons didn't know if they should scavenge or strut their stuff, they too were in seasonal shock. A sunny 55' day.

Baited out of bed by the warmth of the early morning sun, I took a deep breath and attempted the literal act of herding cats.

Our biennial visit to the vet didn't go well. Actually, it didn't go at all. Instead, I became the equivalent of a human hairball in my attempt to wrangle Teddy (pictured at the right) into his carrier.

After several gashes, heart palpitations and a failed wrestling match involving 6 appendages, I gave up. I don't know who was more traumatized, him or me. Returning from downstairs where the pet chauffeur was paid his fare and sent on his way, I found Truman inside his carrier, ready to go; always one for an adventure.

The appointment was canceled and the number of a vet jotted down who makes house calls. The age old question, "how do you know when you're a NY'er?" was answered yet again: When your cat has a chauffeur and receives house calls from his doctor!

Now to go lick my wounds.....

London Lint -- Images by S.B.

CrissCrossed Connections

I crisscrossed continents this past week and connected with friends. I observed a handful of differences in culture and city:

• Londoners are much more patient than NY'ers -- they can stand in a queue without rolling their eyes, shouting explicatives or tapping their toe (this was proven waiting 7 hours in a queue at Virgin Atlantic's JFK terminal while the airline tried to figure out how to reroute 300 passengers due to mechanical problems;
• The Tube system is a breeze to navigate vs the 1/2/4/5/6/Q/D/A/B/C/E/F/Red/Green/etc. subway lines of NY;
• London's street system is more difficult to follow compared to NYC's simple grid system -- but they also have several 100 years on us as a city to complicate matters

Settled back in the States and having met up with friends from both coasts, I can't help but ponder my conversations from this week:

A man rationalizing why the loss of a love 1/2 his age to the girl's ex-boyfriend is worth fighting for; categorizing a boyfriend as a boyfriend even though he is 40 and has not come out of the closet to his family and friends; a newly singled girl chasing after the Greek God she met on a plane but failed to get his digits; the woman who fantasizes what a relationship might be like with a man she has only exchanged emails with but can't quite bring herself to meet in person; the friend who wants to make a career change but can't quite give up the security of the high dollar paychecks.

There is a common thread weaving each of our stories together. On the surface, we share little in common: we represent different ethnicities, religions and sexualities. But looking deeper and listening closely, there are similarities.

If you weave our stories together, they could represent society's encyclopedia on life and love. The question I pose is: why are we willing to settle for anything less than pure happiness, pure love, pure fulfillment, pure satisfaction? Why do we invest more time in shared/closeted/imaginary lovers than we do in finding a true love who is as committed to us as we are to them? What good is a high paid job if we walk away from the office with low satisfaction? What's the point of working 80+ hour weeks if only a few hours remain to enjoy life?

Crisscrossed connections. In an effort to find what will make us happy, we are willing to settle for what might make us happy.

There are times in life when an answer is provided before the question ever arises. The answer to the aforementioned question actually presented itself a few weeks ago. Sitting on the couch watching a DVR'ed episode of Oprah, a guest made the following statement:

I'm the first example of how the world should love me; therefore, I must give them the best example ever.

If we tell the world with our actions that we will settle for an unfulfilling relationship, job or quality of life -- all scenarios leading to dissatisfaction, then chances are, we will receive just that and nothing more. However, if we say through our words, actions and decisions that we are worthy of only the most committed and loving partner, fulfilling career and rewarding quality of life, we stand a much better chance of attracting the equal.

I've been working on this exercise for the past few months and didn't realize it could be defined as succinctly as Oprah's guest did. It's tedious; one has to dig up and dispose of insecurities, develop self-value and self-respect to the point where you won't forsake your own self-worth in an attempt to attract and retain another person's attention. The process and time commitment is worth it though. While I haven't figured everything out (nor will I), I don't feel as crisscrossed in life as I once did. And happiness is much more abundant.

HOW MUCH ARE YOU PAYING YOU?

I moved out of my two bedroom apartment in 2005. Loved the neighborhood (Gramercy) but hated paying the $2200 monthly rent for space I didn't use. Those two bedrooms actually ended up causing me a great deal of stress -- something I'm trying to eliminate from my life as much as possible. Their small and narrow perimeter was an oasis for dust, dander and other things I dare not think of.

Sitting on my couch in the living room at the end of a long day, I would stare into their doorways and feel the anxiety mounting. I needed to clean them but I was too exhausted. And then one day while making a weak attempt at organizing their contents, I came across a set of index cards in a desk drawer.

Nearly 10 years prior, I had jotted down individual goals and dreams on each card. Water-stained and dusty from years of neglect, captured on these 3x5 cards were ten or so of my hopes and ambitions -- each written with brevity and clarity:

• Have credit card debt paid off by year's end
• Start playing the piano again
• Make monthly contributions to social/cultural causes
• Create the table of contents for a book
• Teach a class
• Have all my student loans paid off by age 32 1/2 (don't ask me why 1/2; my memory isn't that good)
• Travel to Africa by age 35
• Travel to Europe before my next birthday
• Listen to the sound of the ocean more
• Minimize my wardrobe to a few interchangeable pieces
• Make 6 figures by age 30

God, I felt like such a loser! All those brilliant, sparkly dreams suffocating under the weight of the mental and monetary commitments I had locked myself into during the past decade.

Around the same time I discovered the cards, a bout of bronchitis I had been fighting for a few months exploded into pneumonia. A round of high-dose steroids over a two week period barely touched it. My body did not move an inch from the couch. It was like God had kicked my feet out from under me and said, "now sit there! and don't move." It worked. The stress of work and anxiety of the obligations requiring my attention in the office faded each day. I could hear my smug inner voice, 'you did this to yourself you know -- and for what? Did you win any medals for your 12+ hour work days or find fulfillment?' No and no. While fading in and out of a drug induced stupor, I read a book, the focus of which was on personal finances. One sentence within the book captured my attention more than any other and started my course of personal change.

The book was Richard Bach's The Automatic Millionaire (as slick as the title may sound, it does contain some very sage advice re: balancing life goals w/ personal finances). Bach poses the question:

After a long day's work; after giving to your employer,

how much are you paying you?

In the context of the chapter, Bach was alluding to how much we put away in savings for each hour or day of wages we earn while at work. For me, the message resonated to my very core and was more than just about money -- much more. I was forced to ask myself how much of my time was I investing in my own personal interests vs the time I was investing in work and individuals in my life. Not a whole heck of a lot. Something had to give; I may not have heeded my inner voice months earlier telling me to slow down, but now my body was demanding it.

A decade of dust was brushed off the index cards, and slowly first steps were taken towards investing in personal growth and happiness. It would not be an easy process; relationships once meaningful would come to an end, family members would linger on the cusp of death; and tedious introspection would need to take place.

I have learned one thing with great certainty: it takes a balance of courage and patience to sort through the external factors that affect our lives in order to find one's genuine path and most importantly, to follow it.