cygnoir.net

O, look, a fifteen-minute break: just enough time to talk about exercise.

Since we last talked about exercise, I am still in the Couch to 5k program, with a few breaks due to illness. How I hate that phrase “due to illness”! But there it is. Also, I have now mapped my regular route, and discovered that my pace is much too slow. I will need to train significantly harder to complete a 5k in a reasonable amount of time. Right now I am stuck on day one of week six of the nine-week program, which is slightly demoralizing but not spirit-crushing because I love it.

There, I’ve said it: I love running. I don’t love running uphill, but that makes sense, right? My legs go all noodly and the whole running thing seems like an ill-conceived idea. Running downhill is less doubt-filled noodle-making, but still not as fun as Just Running. Sadly, San Francisco’s topography has not returned my calls, so there will be no debating this issue.

As much as I love running, I dislike pretty much anything else designed solely for exercise. Someday I will find the thing that makes strength-training endurable. Please let it not be yoga, because all of my yoga-loving friends are already annoyed with me for mocking the names of the poses even though they know I have the sense of humor of a fifth-grader.

And with that, my break ends conveniently before I can talk about being in vocational limbo!

Because sitting in my office with the door closed while eating a wilted salad and trying not to cry is not an acceptable new hobby, here is the briefest of notes on our trip to Portland.

It feels so good to take a risk — traveling with friends — and have it turn out better than I could have hoped. Although it is always nice to have alone-time with FunkyPlaid, the four of us made a great team.

The highlights were many, and involved eating, geocaching, and visiting with friends. There was only one lowlight, in the form of an overpriced and disappointing meal at Bluehour, which I will be reviewing in detail soon. In fact, I have decided to dedicate a portion of this site to reviews, focusing on but not limited to my culinary adventures. It’s well past time.

Portland is enchanting. I love the Pacific Northwest for so many reasons, but the people I meet there consistently impress me. Seattle and Vancouver are more culturally diverse, and therefore more compelling to me, but Portland is so charming and quaint without being precious that I could easily see myself living there.

FunkyPlaid and I are Active Travelers, which is a kind way of saying that we neglect to schedule downtime and end up rather frazzled on the last days of our vacation. We ran out of time before we ran out of things we wanted to do and people we wanted to see, so we’ll just have to go back.

I had this idea during dinner that I would get out my laptop and write something about the Big News, but I don’t know exactly what to say. Forgive my befuddled rambling.

For those of you who haven’t yet heard, I was one of the 15,000 City and County of San Francisco employees to receive a pink slip on Friday. Only I was on vacation and, in an effort to unplug, had not checked work email or RSS feeds all week. We returned home late Friday night, and my pink slip arrived in the mail on Saturday.

To say that I was shocked in that moment … well, I was shocked, but I was also a mess of other emotions. I opened the envelope, expecting a direct deposit slip, and received something very different. (It wasn’t pink at all, if you’re curious.) Because I hadn’t read the news, I thought I was one of a small number of layoffs — you see, I still believed all the “no, there won’t be layoffs” so heartily bandied about before this whole thing. Silly, naïve me.

FunkyPlaid and I sat in my study for a while, awash in disbelief and anger and who knows what else. Then I thought to call the library, and I asked a colleague what was going on. She informed me that she, too, had been laid off, that we all had been, library-wide, and then she related the 15,000 number, which blew my mind. I thought it couldn’t possibly be legal, but of course there are loopholes for any behavior.

I know I am hardly unique in this experience, especially now while our country suffers such economic turmoil. Last year, the union had dealt with the budget shortfall by arranging furlough days in order to stave off layoffs, so I know what it means to make sacrifices so that everyone can keep their jobs. But here we are, and with such a vague promise of rehiring at a shorter work-week, combined with my lack of seniority in the system … well, it looks bleak for me, if not during this round of layoffs then during the inevitable next.

This is hardly personal, but its personal impact is massive. My job is a complex and troubling one, but one I have grown to love with a fierce heart. I had so hoped we — and here I use “we” despite feeling cast aside by this city — would find a way to work together to provide our services to the public without losing anyone. Sometimes that is impossible, I am now told.

I hate that word “impossible”.

My gratitude for your compassion and your patience cannot fully be expressed by a mere “thank you” but I will still say it. I fully realize how despised civil servants are — I regularly hear comments to this effect — and yet you have only shown me kindness. Thank you. No matter what the outcome, I am humbled by your friendship.

A beautiful lady works at the library. I say this — beautiful lady — knowing I sound like a little boy on Valentine's Day.  But she is.

FunkyPlaid and I celebrated Obligatory Romance Day with Burgermeister burgers and geocaching. It was a perfect San Francisco day, 65 and sunny. Dogs of all kinds trotted happily before their humans. We talked about what makes us unhappy about our present, what we look forward to in our future. I am lucky to be able to tell him whatever I am thinking and feeling. It is a small yet crucial thing.

Shortly after arriving home, I read that Lucille Clifton had died. While I was in school in Alabama, I was assigned to read her collection “The Book of Light”. It took me a few passes before I understood the genius in her simplicity. Then I tried to emulate her style. It did not work so well for me, but I still love her poems.

Here is Lucille Clifton’s poem, “won’t you celebrate with me”:

won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my one hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

The song that is playing right now, “Loretta Young Silks” by Sneaker Pimps, doesn’t remind me of anything in particular. I wonder if someday it will remind me of writing this.