Build a Better Social Life: 8 Tips From Wayne Dyer - Global One TV

Build a Better Social Life: 8 Tips From Wayne Dyer - Global One TV: "“Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.”"

Blast from the Past

I've never gotten rid of the Giant Lock Blocks jingle in my head...ever...it visits my brain once a week or so.

Found the lyrics here....http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=227908

It's at the 1:34 mark.

I love it and hate it all at the same time.

Catching Up and Then Some

Facebook blew my mind.  Especially the day I found Lana Homan.  Now known as Lana Russell.  She was a friend that moved away from my hometown (Cheyenne Wells, Colorado) back when we were in Junior High.  Suddenly there she was and once again a friend of mine!  

So now I have this faction of people that I've "found" again and while we don't have a lot of interaction, it's still pretty awesome to "see" them again every now and again.  

I've owed the story of how I ended up where I am to many but never was able to sit down and get it all together in a comprehensive format.

So my thanks to Deena Schuster Wente...she asked me again for the dirty details and then waited...a. Long. Time.  I finally woke from my coma thanks to a little bump of illegal substances and put my thoughts on paper.  Ok..the illegal substance isn't true...but it makes me feel a little bad ass.

I tried to send it via Facebook.  It's too long to send.  You all are gonna be so bored.....

I moved back to Cheyenne Wells when I lost the job at KLBY-TV in Colby.  I was told I lost the job because I was being “laid-off”  but I gotta admit I sometimes wonder if it wasn’t just because I was such a slacker.

Living in CW pretty much sucked and meant I was going nowhere with my life so I asked my Aunt Sharon if I could come to Arizona and move in with her.  My mom had always wanted to move here and my Dad already had a job that was headquartered here even though he was working all around the West so I though what the hell…threw my shit in my truck and took off for the desert.

Was out job hunting and stopped in to the local radio station on a whim…no aircheck…no nothing.  Was told nothing available so put it out of my mind.  Got a job at the new Miller’s Outpost (retail store) in Casa Grande and thought I was on the fast track to Retail Management.

Got an unexpected call from the radio station (then a simul-cast AM/FM country format with a twist – still a format I can’t even describe…KBBT/KPIN) asking if I could come in.  When I got there I read some news and some copy.  They offered me Sat and Sun 6p-12a running a couple of different syndicated shows like Rock, Roll and Remember and some opera show.  But…I got one hour of live show both nights…from 11-12.

A few weeks later they offered me a full time position, the late afternoon drive and I jumped at it cause let me tell you…RETAIL SUCKS!

About 6 months in, the station was purchased by a group of investors that included Frank Sinatra.  We became sister stations with a KYGO in Gillette, Wyoming.  Changed our call letters to KFAS, got a new GM who changed the format to Adult Contemporary…moved me to mid-day and gave me an oldies show during the lunch hour.  It was pretty cool because we hit the wire with Sinatra as our owner.  I got a call from WLS in Chicago and they interviewed me on air…that was awesome!

Earlier during the KBBT/KPIN phase,  I interviewed a musician that was playing at a Vietnam Veteran Reunion we were promoting who had a album out and was plugging that as well.  His name was Marcus Leddy.

Also during this time my parents moved to town.  This made mom rather happy and I was pretty grateful as well.  It pretty much meant I’d never have to go back to that dump of a town on the plains ever again.

So just as I’m getting comfortable with my career, except for what I was getting paid…that musician called me and told me he was coming to town to record a demo of his album that he was going to give to his potential investors and would I be interested in providing backup vocals and maybe even some of the technical pieces of recording.  Of course I jumped at it since that was really what I wanted to do in life and after two weeks of intense work every night after I got off work, I asked Marcus if he needed a partner and if financially we’d be ok because I now had a car payment of $98.00 per month I had to take care of!

He lied to me and said we’d be fine financially…so I quit my job and took off for Houston, Texas to play my first show. 

After that it was off to California to start recording.  A couple weeks into recording however we found out our funding wasn’t gonna come as we originally thought.  The group that was going to invest was a non-profit that was under investigation by the IRS and all money had been frozen.  Knowing what I know now…I could have made a much better decision, however being all of 20 years old…I didn’t have a clue. My new partner didn’t have a clue either so we packed up our shit and went to Florida because that’s where this organization was located.  I guess we thought they couldn’t say no to our faces or something like that. 

Well we were partly right…they couldn’t say no to our faces because they couldn’t get everyone together.  This is a perfect example of business people who shouldn’t be business people getting the chance to make promises with no abilities to act on them.

Defeated we looked around and had no prospects and no money and no where to stay because the crazy friend Marcus met at one of his shows in Florida that we had been staying with was…well….crazy! 

And so it goes that you learn how to survive away from home because you have no choice…we met up with a couple of guys who had a gig but no band so we hocked some of our equipment to rent bigger equipment and started playing at the Lamp Post Lounge in Cape Kennedy, Florida playing 6 nights a week and making $600.00. 

That got us through for a bit till our drummer hooked up with a couple of other guys and we were out.  The name of our band was Instant Karma and I heard stories that he got his later on for doing that to us…but we took our weeks pay and got out of dodge.  Headed to Louisiana to lick our wounds and try and get stuff back on track.

Long story short we never got our money for the studio and we ended up playing shows all over the place to survive.  We settled in Colorado for a bit until we undertook a summer tour of Vietnam Veteran Reunion Shows…didn’t have an album to promote, but went and played the shows anyway.  That was big fun.  Once back in Colorado we infiltrated the music scene there.  Marcus grew up in Arvada and had played there as part of a duo and later a 7 piece band so he knew a lot of the players.  Got wanderlust again and booked 3 months of shows up in Juneau, Alaska…in the winter.  Not the smartest of moves…but it was cool to visit there.  Came back to Arizona and took up residence at a resort in Casa Grande playing as many nights as they would give us. 

Finally that lifestyle made me grow weary.  We did get back out to that same studio and recorded a couple of tunes but never got everything finished as we wanted to.  Did a live recording but could never get that put together well either.

Eventually I knew this wasn’t gonna last so I went to work…sold cell phones and then did some temp work as a receptionist at various places.  Landed at a Real Estate office and they hired me full time.  After being in that environment for a while I went to Real Estate school and got my license.

I floundered around for a year and realized that not only did I suck at Real Estate…I hated it!  I don’t mind negotiation, but most of those folks play their game by different rules than I do.     

Of course by this time Marcus and I were in a relationship and decided to get married when I went into Real Estate so I could have an easier last name.  Leddy beat out Marolf any day!

The shows at the resort were starting to dry up.  By now it’s 1993 and while we tried, we were never really able to break into the Phoenix/surrounding area music scenes.  Different world we just never gelled in.  Casa Grande isn’t really big enough to support a folk rock duo so I started working a couple of jobs. 

I went to work with a friend I met while selling real estate at a conference center as a room set up and server.  He and I were laughing one day about how our lives were going nowhere and we needed to start living but we needed careers.  We joked that we should go to every trade school out there and then both said “yeah…and then we should go to Cosmetology School…”  For some reason that resonated with both of us so we enrolled the next day and a year and a half later I had my license. 

Went to work for the JC Penney salon here in Casa Grande.  Played shows here and there still, out at the resort…outdoor festival…charity events…even private parties.  A year later I was promoted to Manager of the Salon.

Stayed there for about a year and happened upon an opportunity to purchase my own shop in the little area where I lived named Arizona City.  Just a subdivision really, as they are not an incorporated entity and receive infrastructure management and support from the Pinal County government.  Arizona City had a population of approximate 4,000 people and is approximately 15 minutes from Casa Grande.  No major grocery store and no real restaurants to speak of.   But…they all needed haircuts eventually and there was only one other salon in town.  The woman I purchase the shop from retired and had been there for a very long time so it was a great investment.  I had immediate business and although there was expected turn-over I stayed as busy as I wanted and more in the winters and scraped by in the summers.  Arizona was extraordinarily seasonal back then.  It’s beginning to equal out a bit and that area has really grown over the years so it’s not so lopsided now.

I was finally through my quarter-life mark plus a few years and while I loved playing music, I was having a very hard time with the feast or famine lifestyle that it brought.  I was still experiencing a similar existence due to the winter vs. summer business but I was in more control of my life with the shop.  After all its success or failure was directly related to my performance. 

I started coming to terms with what was really going on in my life.  I accepted the fact that my husband Marcus had a tough battle going on with alcohol.  Wait…before I go any further…let me tell you a bit about Marcus.

Kind-hearted, good-intentioned, dreamer Marcus.  Never before have I met someone who put so much of himself into a song…whether it was one he wrote or one he was interpreting.  And that’s what he did.  He didn’t just sing covers…he interpreted what the singer was saying and gave it back to the world. 

He was also a creator of music.  He could write beautiful lyrics and melodies too.  He told picturesque stories that captured you imagination and made you look at the world just a bit differently.  He was a good guy.

He was 18 years older than me and I was a fan.  He took me on adventures and encouraged me to be bold.  He got me in so many effed up situations that I just wanted to run back to Mom and Dad and call the world big and bad and scary but he always helped me find a way through them whether he led the way or I did.

Marcus was a Vietnam Veteran serving 2 tours as a Public Information Officer in the Army.  He wrote news stories and took pictures.  In fact at one point in our relationship, around the time I was in Cosmetology School, he worked for the local Newspaper part time and wrote a weekly column.  It was a humor column writing much in the style of Dave Barry, but it was a bit more fantasy as his character he wrote about, supposed to be him, would get into all sorts of jams and fixes from his own blissful ignorance.  It always worked out in the end though. 

He was never able to get a full time position at that paper.  I’m still not sure why. 

He was offered the position of  PIO for the Pinal County Sheriff’s department which was an offer he took.  I think part of him wanted to feel like he was becoming an adult and I was pushing for the benefits and regular paycheck, but ultimately the pomp and ceremony became too much and he just sweated underneath those ties he had to wear.  It most definitely was not the job for him.

I suspected early on, but never really came to grips and acceptance that he had a battle with alcohol going on.  He was later diagnosed with Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (PTSD) and manic-depressive with bouts us psychosis under periods of stress so I think he was self medicating.  I rode that roller-coaster with him and over time it took its toll on me. 

At heart he just wanted to write songs all day and get paid for it.  He wanted no accountability and while he made a push for fame I think he was afraid of the responsibilities that came with success and sabotaged himself.  In fact, I think deep down he used me as a way out of those responsibilities.  I was young and free and willing to follow him anywhere.  But that was then. 

He looooved me.  Deeply and passionately.  I was his biggest fan for awhile and I love singing with him and even talking to him.  He taught me so much about life and culture and even showed me that culture when we traveled.   I loved him as well and was prepared to spend my life with him.   Took my vows seriously and stayed true…that part was easy, but finally the stage glitter started to wear off and the roller-coaster ride was wearing my spirit down.  I was becoming shrewish, demanding, bitchy, cranky, crabby, exhausted, wore-down and just had no good ju-ju left. 

I smiled through most of it and put on a great face because we had a public image to keep up.    I threatened to leave so many times and probably would have if we didn’t have that music bond.  I had to work through some personal beliefs too about breaking promises and what kind of a person that made me and my deepest fear was that he wouldn’t be able to take care of himself without me.  A bit ego-centric I know but that’s what happens when you’re an enabler and I was a good one. 

Then it happened.  February 24, 2001.  He embarrassed me deeply in front of peers at a Chamber of Commerce event where I was in charge of the entertainment for the day by getting drunk, falling off a table while setting up stage lights and denting a friend’s car with his head.  She laughed it off but I was mortified.  This wasn’t the first public intoxication experience of our lives together.  If you can believe it, I stopped drinking around the time I met him.  Someone had to do all the driving.

I started divorce paperwork the following day. 

You may ask why was this time “the” time?  Simple…a month before I met my girlfriend’s blind date.  Yes…you read that correctly.  He was her blind date.  I didn’t like that she was going to meet a guy she didn’t even know and she didn’t have a driver’s license so I insisted on driving her there and meeting him.

You would have thought he and I were on the date, but at the end of the night I sent them off in his little car and wished them a good night.

I was a good friend.  He and I chatted a couple of times online, but he knew I was married and was totally gallant and gentlemanly. 

Then he split up with my friend.  They hadn’t been serious in his eyes.  In my friend’s eyes it was a different perspective, but that does happen.

I thought he was a shit for telling my friend he didn’t want to see her and decided to go find out why he made this decision.  I don’t know why I went, but I had this urge from deep inside that screamed at me to go talk to him.

We discovered on “date night” that we both loved Dave Matthews.  His band just released their “Everyday” album a few days after he broke up with my friend and when I chatted him up about coming over to talk to him he told me he’d have the new album on Tuesday so to come over that night to listen to it while we talked. 

I was so attracted to Curtis on both a physical and mental level that it drove me to distraction.  When we finally began talking about the break up he confessed that he really wasn’t that interested in my friend, but wanted to get to know me better regardless of what would become of our relationship.  He honored the fact that I was married but hoped that he could continue to get to know me by dating her.  That coupled with the screaming in my head and heart made me almost dizzy.  Being with him made me feel at home for the first time since I was in high school.  In fact, it was the first time I felt safe since leaving Casa Grande with Marcus to play that first show in Houston.

I was in love and in lust and suddenly the world seemed alive again.    We met up almost every night that week, one night even meeting in the Wal-mart parking lot where he was picking up medicine for his sick little girl. 

So that was what made me know I would be ok and could finally find the strength to leave.  Not your healthiest transition but one that I jumped into head first without really looking back or caring about the consequences.  I felt alive finally and safe and felt like I had met my best friend ever…and we didn’t really even know each other yet! J

So I did it…told Marcus that we were done on a Friday night, huge drama ensued on Saturday including alcohol, a gun, suicide threats and ending with an arrest. 

I felt horrible about that.  I never wanted it to come to that, but Marcus told me that he never put up a good fight when his first wife left him so I guess this was him making up for it.  I had to completely turn my back on him.  One of the toughest things I’ve ever done in my life.

Finally Marcus and I were able to find a common ground again.  He moved away and eventually got treatment and that’s when he was diagnosed with the PTSD and other disorders.  That served as validation to me that his affliction would never be able to be managed by me and as long as I was there, I would enable him to ignore his issues. 

I went to Curtis’ house the night that Marcus was arrested and basically never left.  He was my shelter and 

made me feel differently about myself. 

We just fit together.  Still do to this day.  I never wanted kids.   Overnight I had 3 beautiful, challenging, bring you to tears in a second girls.  Chynna was 9, Sierra was 7 and Shyanne was 5.

Kids I discovered are loud, messy, needy, loud, messy, needy…oh I mention loud, messy and needy?  They don’t have the same priorities as you and certainly don’t operate on the same schedule as you! 

I closed the shop later that year.  I was completely burnt out.  Exhausted emotionally and physically and just had nothing left. 

Curtis asked me to marry him right away and I immediately accepted but we both weren’t ready.  We had other business to take care of and some getting to know each other that needed to happen so over the course of a couple of years we lived together but separately.  I managed my money…he managed his.  I worked on bonding with his girls and they circled around me a bit, except Sierra.  She knew more parents ultimately meant more presents for special events so she was an open book and let me right into her heart.

I struggled with co-parenting.  Not with Curtis, but with the girl’s Mom.  Looking back I know I was doing what I thought was right, but I think I could have been a bit more cooperative.  To me, she wasn’t a great influence on the girls, but she was their Mom.  I couldn’t fight or deny that. 

We all managed to make it though.  While the girls stayed with us full time for the first couple years we were together, their Mom eventually got a place of her own and the girls started staying with her more.  They were older now and she lived in town whereas we were approximately 5 miles out without a lot of neighbors. 

After I closed my salon, I rented a booth at a local salon but grew weary of that so I got out of the hair game all together and went to work at our County’s Medicaid Plan Administrator.  I had developed a morbid curiosity with the entire Microsoft Office Suite and would make things up just to get to play with the programs.  So I became the Secretary for the Medical Programs section.  We managed Medical QA and Utilization and tracked Disease Management efforts and I got to play with those programs to my heart’s content!!

I got the job due to my computer skills…well that, and I knew the guy that was hiring.  But I was totally capable and kinda awesome at the job.  This was my first job since closing the shop, so it really seemed like a cake walk to me.  Office politics are an interesting animal, but I’d come from a community of that when I lived in Arizona City so I rolled with it.

Curtis and I married the next year, 2004.  We went on a road trip for our honeymoon to Colorado.  He’d never been out on an adventure like that before and I wanted to show him what I’d been doing for the past 13 years.  We had a blast.  I even took him out to Cheyenne Wells and we made sure we went to the Kansas border so he’d get another state under his belt.  J

I got word back in November last year that Marcus passed away a month prior due to complications of cirrhosis which came as no surprise to me but was shocking none the less.  While we weren't close following the divorce because I felt I really had to put distance between us, I still cared about him.  Still do to this day.  He was an amazing influence in my life and without him I would have never been exposed to the life that makes me so open to other humans and situations. I’m grateful for his place in my world and am a bit sorry that I was never able to really re-connect with him in a way that would have allowed us to perform together…or ever just sit down as friends and catch up.  His disease was our dividing factor not who he was or became.    

Upon reflection, I’ve been feeling at peace with my past life since I sat down and started this self-focused remembering.  I guess at your expense, I got a chance to go back and examine some stuff that I had put away in my brain and surprisingly it’s not as painful as it was when I boxed it up and tucked it away into my grey matter.  Thanks for the ear…even though it’s your eyes...but it’s like you’re listening to me…oh booger…it’s too complicated to think about! 

So now I’ll press fast forward and spare you some of your lifetime.  Curtis and I are still together…I’m still at the same employer (Pinal County) but working a different job.  I’m a data analyst but work more with the importing and exporting of data housed in our claims payment systems and I’m our Encounter analyst.  Encounters are simply the claims that we process that we have to send up to our state medicaid agency.  They use that data to determine capitation rates (amount they pay us per member), utilization of services, accuracy of our processing…etc.   We’re in a pressure situation right now because our contract with AHCCCS (Arizona Medicaid system) is up for bid and our county has grown enough to where we’ve got some competition.  We’re putting in uber hours to get all our responses written and we’re getting ready to apply to be a Medicare Advantage plan as well which means we’ll have a Medicare side to the house.  That means expansion and hopefully a promotion and a good salary boost. 

Curtis and I have 2 of our girls living with us full time now.  They’ve been exclusively with us for 4 years.  Chynna our oldest was with us, but decided she wanted to be closer to her Mom and moved in with her Grandma in Ajo.  Her mom is living in Ajo but was having a tough time managing her life without doing a lot of drugs, so I think Chynna felt like she needed to be there to keep an eye on her and to help her out.  Chynna graduated from High School last May and moved to Flagstaff to start school, however ran into some snags and has decided to come back down the mountain.  She’ll be moving in with us at the end of the month and will go to the community college here in town.  I know what a tough time I had of it when I first moved away from home so when she asked if she could move in with us, I didn’t hesitate.  It seems her mom is finally off drugs, but still having life management issues.  After all, Ajo is only 90 miles away from here, but she’s been here to see the girls in the last 4 years a handful of times. It's probably for the best for all of us, but I have to admit I'm constantly nervous that she'll show up one day and want the girls back and they'll go cause she's their Mom and they love her.  And they should.   

I still sing.  Known as "the girl on the end" with The Keepsakes.  We're a 6 voiced 50's do-wopesque performing group.  We play at local festivals and RV parks in Arizona.  We've opened for the Drifters, the Coasters and the Platters and did a small tour of county fairs a few years ago.  Our shows have slowed significantly over the last couple of years. The economy plays a large part in that.  It's coupled with the fact that our founder/business manager has a ton of other stuff on her plate right now as she's been producing local shows over the past couple of years - a few that I've been in - and that's taken up much of her time.  I don’t know how much time we have left as a group, but it’s all good.  It’s been a fun run and we recorded a couple of CDs.  Good times and good shows.   

Curtis works for an Arizona based auto and light truck supply house.  He’s the best parts man in the state.  No doubt about it.  He’s a hard working man that is crazy about me and I feel the same about him.  He and I had such an instant chemistry that put us deep into a relationship before we really knew what hit us.  We’ve had some adjusting to do in order to get to know each other over the past 10 years but we really like what we have discovered and I see myself growing old with him.  Plus…I’m still crazy in love with him. 

So…I’m uncertain where the future is leading us.  We’re eager and excited.  We think we’ve planted some good stuff and we’re looking forward to see what we get to harvest.  We both have very different backgrounds but at heart we just want to hang out with someone who gets us and takes us for who we are at heart.  The core of our relationship is the idea that "if I can sit down and hang out with you naked where my fat rolls and cellulite can’t be hidden, then I should be able to say anything to you that rolls through my brain and you’re not gonna think I’m a complete freak…or loser"…or any of those other labels we throw on ourselves.  Curtis encourages me to be freer with my thoughts and emotions and most importantly to just be silly because life with an alcoholic just made me serious and a bit morose.  He brings my funny out and I in turn entertain him.  He’s my favorite audience.

Oh…one downside to Curtis…he’s a fucking Raider fan.  My Bronco nation threatened to kick me out until I convinced them that I was working my mojo on the Raiders by being with Curtis…it kicked in after the Superbowl in 02 and I’ve kept them successfully sucking until now.  I can’t be held responsible for this season though because our record sucked.  Ah…ain’t Love Grand....?