The Art of Procrastination

I'm not sure that procrastination can be considered an art. I'm sure that you type A people consider it a curse word.  My type is a little farther down alphabet, maybe somewhere around U or V.  

The thing is I want to be a writer.  There. I said it out loud. The problem with being a writer is that to be one, you have to write.  Which brings me to procrastination. 

My ability to procrastinate is in direct relationship to my desire for something.  What I mean is, on a scale of 0-10, with picking up dog poop being a 0 and writing being a 10,  I usually start around a 6 or a 5 activity and work my way down the scale.  Sometimes I'm reaching into the 2s categories.

The things I have done to avoid blogging:  dishes, laundry, vacuuming, bikini waxing, and working out. I spent a 1/2 hour googling F. Scott Fitzgerald and another 15 minutes considering whether that could be counted as research for writing.  What I'm not saying is, that through blogging, I am avoiding writing my half-done novel.

Perhaps the logic behind all this procrastination is that in the undone act, possibility thrives. A masterpiece can still be born.

Or maybe that logic is just another tool in my procrastinator's bag of tricks.  Enough contemplating for the day.  I have a novel that needs written, just as soon as I get the fish tank cleaned.

                                                             

Sending a little love to the Truckee High football team. The Wolverines are going for win #41 tonight!  Go Wolverines!!

Reinvention Venture

September 20th was a big day for me.  At 9:00 pm my decision to take an 'early out' from my job as a flight attendant became official and non-revokable.  The decision was difficult and emotional.
As I was deadheading from Miami to Chicago, I had the pleasure of sitting across the aisle from a flight attendant that I really like.  We had flown together the day before and she had not mentioned that she was even considering taking the early out package.   On that flight, 7 hours before the deadline to put in for it, she said she was considering it.  We spent the entire 2 1/2 hours discussing it.  I do hope I did not influence her decision to leave but instead illuminated the issues for her.  I received a tremendous amount of clarity for myself during our conversation.  I realized that the advice I was giving her, I needed to take myself.  Here's a few highlights of our conversation.

Don't stay because you are afraid.  Stay because you truly love the lifestyle, the job, and the people.  That being said, the truth is I am scared to death to let go of this job that has provided me with so much.
We have more skills than we are aware of.  I could easily point out her skills and qualities.  She has a great manner with people.  She is responsible.  She is organized.  She is energetic.  She is caring.  It is much harder for me to point out my own skills and qualities but I know I will need to recognize them, encourage them, and flaunt them if I want to successfully move into this new phase in my life.
She asked if I thought it irresponsible to quit a job when 28,000,000 people are unemployed.  I thought the opposite. It may be irresponsible NOT to take this opportunity to move into something she would love, something that would allow her the chance to be the mother and the woman that she wants to be.  This could be her chance to really excel.
In the end, she put in for it as we taxied into O'Hare airport.  She made a decision for her career right there on the runway.

Don't  stay anywhere out of fear.  We need to embrace the adventure of life.  We all have so many God-given gifts and qualities.  It is time to exploit those.  The irresponsible thing would be to not fully share ourselves in the best possible way with this world and those around us.
I am calling this new phase of my life Reinvention Venture.  Please let me know your own thoughts and stories of reinvention.  I would love to hear them!

Sinking Ships

Artwork by Brennan Berg circa Sept. 2011

This past weekend was heavenly.  I hung in the sun, went barefooted, and got the first sap of the summer on my heels.  Soaked up a little vitamin D - the sunshine vitamin that I like to think will brighten me up.

These days I need all the brightening I can get.  As you know (or don't know), I am a flight attendant for an airline who recently declared bankruptcy.  With all the recent programs featuring the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, I can't help but draw parallels between the Titanic going down and my company's rapid descent.  Both thought they were invincible and both had arrogant and ineffectual leadership.  Both were disorganised.  Both sent lifeboats away half full.  Can you guess who was in the Flagship's lifeboats?  I'll give you a hint - it wasn't women and children first.  Now it is obvious which class that I, a low level employee (and as management likes to say, the public face of the company), am traveling in - steerage.  That is one class below our paying passengers.  At least I am not in the band. I am not sure who is in the band but possibly middle and lower management.   Their jobs right now seem to be trying to keep the morales of the steerage class up even as we all slide toward the water.  A big difference between the Titanic and the airline is that a lot more passengers are going down with the ship even as our leadership leaps to the safety of their padded bank accounts.

These days when the pilots call to ask if anything is broken on the airplane, my favorite responses are "Just our spirits", or "Just our hopes and dreams".  Talking with a friend the other day, we both agreed that we don't want to be 'Victims of CorporAAte Greed', as so many co-workers like to pronounce.  We don't want to be victims of anything. 

So that being said, I want to strive for a better future and thrive knowing I am living life  with integrity and love. Of course that is easier said while I am sitting in Truckee on my back deck watching spring unfold than when I am on the deck of the Titanic trying to keep my head above water.

I want to leave you all with a very funny video by a talented guy named Gailen David.  Check it out.

Spring so soon?

It seems odd that Spring is coming to Truckee so soon.  Due to our dismally low levels of snowfall this year, I halfway feel like I'm still waiting for winter.  Mother Nature hasn't been listening well lately. 

How I know it's Spring:
Tahoe Donner had it's last day of skiing on Sunday, April 15th.  Other ski areas will be following soon, I'm sure.  Last days are always so festive.  The lift ops and food servers are practically jumping out of their skin in anticipation of freedom.  Sort of like the last day of school.  Yes, that means they won't have a job for a while but when you are 18 years old, you are not so worried about losing all your 'benefits'.  There was a bouncy house for the kids set up on the lodge deck and a band played music you could hear all over the ski hill.  The day ended with a ski jump contest for dummies.  No, we are not talking about your average, overconfidant, weekend warrior skier.  These were real dummies (or as the creators liked to say - works of art) set atop old pairs of skis.  There was Elvis, Lightening McQueen, R2D2, Top Gun fighter plane, Roger Rabbit, and King Kong, just to name a few.  It was a hoot.

Hey, if it makes you laugh it's all good!

Take two beers and jump!

Have you all heard about the flight attendant who gave an expletive laced P.A., grabbed a couple of beers, and jumped down the slide? Of course you have and what a gift of a subject for a first blog.  Being a flight attendant, I have so much to say about this that it could (and might) fill a months' worth of blogs. 
Traveling these days can be so difficult on people - long lines, rude people, baggage fees, HINI scares, rude people, bad weather, missed connections, no food, TSA, rude people (oops - did I mention TSA and rude people in the same sentence? That's for another blog). Doesn't it just make you want to go flying?
Back to the "incident".  Now I don't know how FA Slater's day was going.  I do know there are trips when you have a mechanical on every flight, a medical emergency or two, your days are 13 or 14 hours and your layovers are 8 hours. Oh and the no food service, that applies to the flight attendants also. Some days we are starved! Perhaps Steven Slater was at the end of one of those trips. It is a FAA regulation that while an aircraft is on the ground it is unable to move if anyone is standing up, let alone removing their luggage from the overhead bins. Yet just about every other flight there is one or two passengers who feel this rule doesn't actually apply to them (I wonder if these people also think red lights are just a suggestion). Apparently this passenger forgot, didn't care, was more important than everyone else - take your pick - and began to gather her items before the aircraft was parked at the gate, clearly breaking federal regulations. When FA Slater approached the passenger to remind her of the rules, he was then cussed out and hit in the head with falling luggage. Now if someone was standing on the edge, that would be the push that would send him over, and it certainly did. Or at least down the slide.
I think what has captured every one's attention is the flourish with which he made his exit.  People hold him up as a "working class hero", someone who stood up for himself and said I'm not going to take it anymore. We all fantasize about what we will do on our last day on the job but he actually did it!
But it wasn't any system or company or big business that pushed Steven Slater to jump that day. It was another human being. What I hope people will realize is that after all is said and done, we are all in this together, whether on this earth or rocketing through the sky in a metal tube full of cramped, smelly, hungry, nervous, sick, jet-lagged humans.  Let's treat each other well, understand that sometimes we have to follow the rules, and that under no circumstances is it okay to be disrespectful to others.
As a fellow flight attendant, I wish him the best. We all have a love-hate relationship with this job and he did it for 18 years. That is a lot of stories and a lot of memories.