Hold on my heart

So I'm in my new home. It is so beautiful. So quiet. No garbage trucks at 6am, no commuter traffic, no neighbors below and on the other side of the wall where I need to be careful not to make noise.

I pass the morning in peace without guarding against the noise of trucks, neighbor stereos, the apartment refrigerator 5 feet from where I work. I am on guard against these things and they are gone. I am waiting and on guard for what is next. My life has been taken from me. I feel robbed. I was in a good marriage and it fell. I thought I knew what I was doing and I didnt.

I do so well even brilliantly in my work. I've been at a high level in my string of careers. [Kids: this is chronological which is why you are third.] Music - Carnegie Hall. Medicine - Mass General Hospital. Children - they are so wonderful, the treasure of my life. Community - chairman of board of health. Church - board of elders. Public health - charity founder and president and saved 3000 lives, a number which to this day I can not wrap my head around.

That we saved the child from Chechnya I get. That we saved the baby airlifted from Dagestan I get. That we saved the patient with burns I get. But 3000 is beyond my ken.

Then to work with FDL - we are pushing the edge for human rights. End of torture as a national policy. Winding down the wars. Open government where people who speak their minds will be heard and not marginalized. Human rights for all. Covering the prop8 trial and in charge of our archives, it is history. Helping our authors make the case for foreclosure fraud. I seem to be able to do this work.

Where I fail utterly is in human relationships. I am at the level of a 7 year old. I seem clueless because I am clueless. I dont get it. I dont understand what other people understand. I have to ask for help in the most elementary ways and it is so humiliating. The disconnect between my intellect and my emotional intelligence is painful. I wanted this on the record so that people will understand what I have tried to do. God bless all who have extended mercy to me as I struggle.

mcEgregious learns the Mac

It might not surprise you to learn, after hearing me rave about all things Scottish with the possible exception of haggis [sorry Marcy], that I am a Mc. This weekend I had the opportunity to learn about another kind of mac.

Learning to use a new computer, a new operating system, and new software during a work emergency should be a breeze right? It worked out in an unexpected way. Story of my life.

I started work as usual at 7 in the morning. That alone should be enough to alarm family and friends, since historically and until very recently I was quite the night owl, working til 2am not uncommon.

At a critical moment I couldn't access my files. Good old microsoft IE at its best. Yes, I was going to have to get up to speed immediately on the new mac, which had been slowly assembled and tested over a couple of weeks. I'm not against technology, I just want to understand things in depth before allowing them into my life. Is that so unreasonable?

The good news is that both my working partner and my best friend are mac people. They have been beating on me encouraging me for months to come over to the Light. I finally purchased one when my 5 year old thinkpad developed vertical lines so wide I couldn't always read what was on the screen. These two people saved me and my work from chaos.

After four hours of tutorial, I was ready to fly solo. Good thing, because the work situation was imploding. Don't know what I would have done without the mac. It ended up being a 15 hour work day, if you count the morning lessons, but that's ok. It all worked out, and time off can be put off for another time. I do notice how it rarely is that other time...hm....

Takehome message: yay friends and coworkers. Thank you.