At yoga today

Today I went to Yoga to the People. The room is a huge and beautiful space. Exposed wood rafters make up the ceiling with support pillars coming down to the shiny wood floor. The walls are red brick with large old windows, square and four paned facing west to Mission Dolores Park and North to down town. At their tips, the sky scrapers disappear into the fog. A single palm tree swayed in the wind outside and a california flag flaps its colors against the milk white sky. Plants and white candles hang from the windows and line the floors. This practice brings inner focus on the heat and energy we create in poses that make me feel like an eighty year old man. The breathing washes away my many fears and anxieties and brings gratefulness for so many things. At then end, as she tolls the bells that resound in my half asleep ear, she reads a passage by Goethe:

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back-- Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."

I spent the Great Recession under water

The sea was silver in the sun today and Vera's calm energy poured over me into the ocean waves. The coldness and the salt smell and the tug and receding sand under my feet brought me joy and loosened the constriction in my throat.

On my 25th birthday, I cliff jumped and swam and Brooks called me a fish like all my loved ones do.

Then he smiled and said, 'and I'm a fisherman, that's how I got you.'

The fisherman and his fish.

Only he always lets his fish go after he puts that sharp hook in them, then tears it out of their flesh. He does it for the thrill, not the fish.

While he casts his net, smiling, green eyes flashing, the line sailing out with the whip zip zip, the fish bleeds out into the water as it swims on its way.

And the fisherman never sees.

Small pleasures

Today I met up with Zoe and Vera and Marina for lunch at Outerlands. They say on their website, "Outerlands is a gathering place for sea goers who seek warmth, shelter, food, and fellowship. it is a retreat from the saltwater chill, or a place to hang your hat after a long day's frolic in the sun. it is a home for art and music." Outerlands is way out near the ocean, nondescript from the outside, but absolutely beautiful from the inside. It's made of rough pieces of wood recovered from the beach and from garages. The boards of wood are various colors of sun bleached gray. The counter has beach rocks embedded in the wood in a swirled pattern along with fragments of driftwood. The windows are wide and square, with views of the ocean. Sitting there with three of the most peaceful, kind-hearted, genuine, patient and thoughtful girls I know was an absolute delight. I was happy even before my organic local and unbelievable food arrived. We discussed food and we discussed plants. I took my shoes off and felt the round, comforting rod of my wooden chair on the arches of my feet. I felt the sunburn running along my legs from body surfing until my brain froze yesterday. I drank my cappuccino and watched with delight as my gypsy skirt billowed every time the front door let in the San Francisco wind, and I enjoyed the curiosity and good company of these girls. After lunch we stopped in a flower shop that looked like a log with a hole cut in the middle. We explored the white washed greenhouse in the back filled with succulents, and we made bird noises and giggled on the patio. Then we went to an organic health food store and contemplated every single kind of chocolate they had to offer. After that was the cookie shop where we were offered shots of milk with our cookies. We made plans for Yosemite, for more food, for more fun once everyone is back from visiting family and friends and far off boyfriends. I have been so grateful for these lazy summer days, playing on the beach, eating, hiking, being with friends. Despite the stress of not having a job and the fear of my future, things are pretty darn good.

Two years, two months and two weeks

Sorry I will start by saying this is poorly written because it came out in a gush.

It’s hard to believe it was over two years ago that I first wrote about what a twilight zone I work in. It’s amazing what you become accustomed to and what you will take as normal because it becomes your entire life. I don’t see it as bad that I let it be my entire life. 2009 was the best year of my life. I got promoted a couple of times and demoted once before the first promotion. I struggled and learned and was praised for great worked and cussed at for mistakes. My job was my entire social life, and I think that’s pretty lucky.

There were some pretty hilarious and entertaining times. There was the time my boss burst into the other executive’s office singing “Bake Sale Betty!” and asked his assistant to book a charter bus to take us to have fried chicken sandwiches at Bake Sale Betty in Oakland in the middle of the work day. The was the huge chrome dome buses with the vinyl floor, amps, bucket of booze and absolutely no seats, just a dance floor. There were the jello shots and summer beer before the bus ride that took us to a ranch in the hills of Marin where I reigned as the all-agency mechanical bull riding champion. The executives passed us blunts as we listened to the live band commissioned just for us. On the way back we turned the bus into the sweatiest, loudest dance club I’ve been in. As we barreled down through the hills on the curvy road, our night club music blared and we rolled from side to side, holding the roof to keep from falling over. Once we crossed back over the Golden Gate bridge and into the financial district, we kept our dancing going, the music just as loud as we stuck our sweaty faces out the window to smile at the grim expressions on office-workers’ faces as they lined up for their bus ride home. There was the Christmas party, climbing a statue with my boss Mike and setting off the alarms, dancing until five in the morning, thinking it was a good idea to put a cupcake in my jacket pocket to eat later. There was the next morning when Google sent us breakfast burritos and we sat around the kitchen table, eating, laughing, gossiping like college students hung-over, ashamed of each other but never ashamed to tell every juicy detail. Michelle passed around pictures of her making out with the French caterer who was later found on the internet in a sex scandal law suit. She even showed these pictures to the creative executive Jim, who it’s her job to assist. The executives languished over the details of the ex-model Lindsey making out with the female bartender that was licking spilled liquor off the bar, crying because someone called her “Jersey Shore” and dick grabbing every man with a wedding band. The new digital planner, (the guy who gets paid to tweet and blog and foursquare and facebook for our brands) told us all about the married, swinging finance woman and her bold inquiry to fuck in the photo booth. With all his shock and modesty, I reminded him how he tried to suck vodka out of my hair when he’d spilled it on me the night before. Then there were the late nights drinking wine and eating chocolate in the all-glass executive office, sprawling on the couches as the sun turned the sky over the bay pink, and the water deepened it’s blue. There was Peter, the president, making my day every morning when he sung “here’s to you Lindsay Robinson!” or telling me I had a smile as bright as the day, that no one in the world was as sweet and as good as Torts. His Linzer Torts. There were the dance nights with Adriana and her friends, the nights arm in arm with Melissa, where she was shocked that a man was peeing in the urinal in what she thought was the women’s bathroom. There was her explaining to us all the drinking games you can play with a turkey baster. There were brandy shots, limo rides from bars to expensive dinners on the agency, steak and endless wine and appetizers. There was cutting VIP lines, there were concerts at the Fox in Oakland watching from the VIP section. There was sitting between Mindy and Amy, two of the sweetest girls I know, and all three of us so happy, calling ourselves Love Row as we gushed about the men we were in love with and supported each other, laughed with each other, drank wine at our desks, watched YouTube together, played chat roulette on the work computers and blasting Peter’s favorite songs as he praised his three wonderful girls and went singing down the halls. Then Mindy quit and got engaged and Amy went to live with her boyfriend in LA. Dominique quit to move in with her boyfriend in New Orleans and Melissa quit and moved to Pittsburgh. Kate quit to move in with her boyfriend in Chicago. Lizeth and Megan quit. Courtney got laid off, Peter got promoted to BBDO Europe and occasionally sends emails from Moscow, Paris, Venice, Vienna and London.. Alexa quit because it stressed her out. Sarah got laid off. The other Sarah got laid off too. Danielle got laid off. Allie got laid off. Bernice quit after crying every day for four months. Marcus and Elizabeth got laid off. Jon Soto, the one who told me I was going to become a voice over actress and got me on regional television got laid off. In four months, I am the 28^th person gone. Our office was 70 people. It hasn’t been all bad, but there’s been a lot of bad.

My immediate boss Crystal openly admits to having “No moral scruples” and just wants to have fun. She cusses at me, slams doors and huffs and puffs and gloats at misfortune and gloats about her newly embellished title of “Deputy Head”. She tells people to fuck off if they schedule a meeting with me because they have to “fucking go through HER if they want use of my time”. She calls me on the weekends to scream at me and she comes to my house and follows me around, telling me what to do. She takes credit for all my work so that the new president thinks I am incompetent. She’s been setting that up for a long while. She and her sister are poison. When I got laid off she pulled me into her office, and with a mean smirk on her face she told me “Life’s a bitch my friend. Do you have any questions?” I didn’t. All I wanted to say was, “You should have written me a thank you note for the expensive wedding present I got you.” That and “You shouldn’t have made me clean up your cat’s shit and begged me at all hours of the night to come cat sit.” But mainly I’m mad at myself for getting taken advantage of like that. In my own house she told me I had a squirrelly face, a rodent face. She told me I had a mean spirit. She told me I "fucking sucked" at my job. Interesting that she steals my work then. Interesting that she is mean-spirited.

Some of my friends say I’m losing it. Some say my life is falling apart. Some say they are worried about me. Everyone wants to know what I’m doing, and frankly I have no clue. And I won’t know for a while. For right now I’m trying to pick up the pieces of this life that’s fallen apart and glue it back together into a totally different shape that is a better reflection of me. I try to remind myself that it’s better to be dangling naked in the wind, like underwear on a clothesline, freezing, and liable to fall, (end metaphor) but with a million possibilities in front of me, than it is to be safe and secure but unhappy every day and stagnant and know what every single day of your life will be like along that given path.

When I first took the promotion, I mentioned sinking or swimming. I don’t feel like I sank. Excuse the continuation of a cheesy metaphor, but I feel like I swam lap after lap after lap and then realized I was just in a pond and not the ocean and decided to jump out of the water altogether. No wonder I’ve spent so much time in the ocean these past two weeks…

I emailed my old boss Peter to tell him I was done at BBDO. He didn’t have to see this place turn sour when he left. He didn’t see the crying and deceit and carrying on, the rounds and rounds of lay offs, the quitting, the mass exodus and the crawling and scratching up the corporate ladder.

His email to me was incredibly nice. In it he ended by saying, “Lindsay Robinson you have the light. Burn Brightly my friend.” I will try to do that.

This chapter ends

Dominique and I in wigs. She just quit and is about to move to Louisana. We used to get drinks after work and talk about quitting.

The team of people who work on Heritage, the client I brought in with my research and strategy. The two executives Mike and Peter told me "fucking awesome job" and said I had a lot of fucking confidence and knowledge in this meeting.

On the way back from a Rodeo Wednesday at Rancho Nicasio. Lizeth quit shortly after this was taken.

Typical shotgunning. This happens in the office two. Alli in the middle was just laid off a couple months and Barti in the middle quit.

Some simple dance moves as the bus swayed down through the hills of Marine County blasting, "Tonight's gonna be a good good night!"

After I beat the Turk as the all-agency bull-riding champion, we had a truce and did a ride together.
Some of my favorite people getting on the bus. Kate quit and moved to Chicago. Melissa quit and moved to Pittsburgh and Mindy quit and told me to do the same.

When the world turns gray

I would keep you in my heart

Just to make the bay a brighter blue

Though you’ve never been here to see it in summer

You make it novel

simply because when I see it

I want to see it for you

I would let you keep my heart

Just so I can appreciate the church by the bridge

Though those steeples will never be your school

And the bridge isn't red in texts

And you’ve never seen it on a clear day

You make me giddy about this beauty

At the possibilities

I would wait months to see you

Just to make these parties fun

Though you’ll never know my friends

Or drink with them and eat a meal in the park

With the light growing deep and dark

Over the Painted Ladies

You make it matter

Because my life is full and

fuller with you in the back of my mind

I would break down all the walls

-In fact I did

Just to talk to you

At the end of the day

To make the morning light

Yellow and bright

Because you’ve never been close

And you never will be

But that’s just physicality

It still sort of feels like you became

My best friend

Book wisdom

I read in a book I read a while ago something about abundance creating abundance. "Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world" Right now I don't feel any energy for my work. I don't feel any motivation or drive or focus. I feel tired every morning on my way to work. I must be withholding energy from my work. But why?

In a more recent book I am reading, it says we all have a source of energy that is infinite and requires no outside input such as food or sleep. The reason some people are more energetic is because they are accessing the energy in their heart, whereas others are living in fear- closing off all the energy in their heart, with constant blockages from anxieties and past problems that make the energy cycle around and around instead of being let out. The book said we are always opening and closing our heart. We get hurt so we close our heart. If we kept our heart open all the time we would be able to access that infinite energy.

I am vowing to myself to keep my heart open every minute. It may be scary. The person I am falling in love with might break my heart, or it might not work simply because of distance. I could lose my job; I could do a bad job. I could lose all this. But as the daily ups and downs come and go and make me fearful, I refuse to close my heart. I am hoping for renewed energy. I am hoping to love correctly and live correctly.