Fairport NY, would you please step forward??

The beautiful village of Fairport (Source)

I have a habit of obsessively reviewing my blog viewer history. 


Mostly because I want to know (without asking them) if someone has looked at the post today that may or may not have been controversial… and for which I may or may not have to later eat crow (or otherwise apologize). 


I’m interested to see regulars on my blog: Allen, TX = my friend Janie Oyakawa (whose blog I read regularly as well). Bedford, TX = either my mother in law or my friend Dawn. ((Or I might just be delusional in thinking either one of them read my blog)). Tiskilwa, IL = my BFF Angela. (Who ELSE lives in Tiskilwa, anyway!) 


So when I see people from Cairo or Budapest, I have a little fantasy in my head

Ang - Day 2

I have come to the conclusion that if this experiment is going to be worth doing (and certainly worth anyone reading about it) that I have to have to (a) seek out more human interaction on a daily basis, and (b) actually get off my couch. Why? Because here's the radical honesty self-disclosure of a typical day: 

1. Wake up at 8:50 AM. 

2. Go to bathroom and brush teeth. 

3. Pet dogs. 

4. Put on a pot of hot water.

5. Sign on to the Internet and start work at 9:00AM.

6. Work from my couch. In my PJs. 

7. Worry. 

8. Eat the food and drink the tea that my wonderful husband prepares for me. Sometimes at the table. Mostly on the couch. 

9. Continue to work from my couch. In my PJs. 

10. Worry some more. 

11. Send about 50 e-mails to clients and co-workers.

12. Answer about 10 telephone calls, 4 of them from tele-marketers. 

13. Send personal e-mails and chat with my friends via G-Chat intermittantly throughout the day.

14. Check my Facebook as Internet access permits. 

15. Continue to work from my couch. In my PJs.

16. Worry some more. 

17. Take a shower around 5 or 6 PM and (a) get dressed if we are going somewhere, or (b) change into different PJs.

18. Eat the dinner and drink the tea that my wonderful husband prepares for me. 

19. Go to said meeting/appointment/engagement. Or, sit on the couch and read. Or, sit on the couch and work on my continuing education classes. Or, sit on the couch and watch a movie. 

20. Brush teeth. 

21. Go to bed. 

22. Lay there and worry until I fall asleep. 

There's just not a helluva lot of room for entertaining "radical honesty" to occur during the course of a day like that.

True to this, today there were only a few moments of temptation: 

1. I was feeling tempted to cancel my place at a seminar I signed up for in March. The temptation is to cancel and say it is because funds are tight and I don't have the money. This is partially true, but the real reason I am tempted to cancel is that I hate seminars where I actually have to TALK to people and, Jesus, DO GROUP WORK. This seminar by nature will require group work, talking, and signing up to "practice" in some intimate positions. Its a doula training. I didn't cancel the training and instead I confessed to a dear friend the real reason I was thinking of bailing. Turns out she was thinking of bailing for the same reason. And now we are holding each other accountable not to. 

2. Later in G-Chat.... same friend, different scenario. Asked me if I thought she should spend money on paying dues to do lots of things for her business. Instead of justifying by why the events would be good, etc. etc. I told her that if the only reason she wasn't going to do it was because she was gonna be cheap that she should do it. That she needed to invest in the business if she was serious about it. Not a difficult encounter, but honest nonetheless. (We're pretty good at this, she and I.) 

3. Talking about being a foster parent with my husband. Told him I was scared out of my mind. His response? "Good. You should be." Then I say "Well, should we still do this then?" "Yes. But it is good that you are scared." I think I am having the sudden realization that at least half of the time he is radically honest with me. Damn. 

4. Told co-worker I didn't start a project she was expecting me to do because I didn't know she wanted me to. Usually I blow sunshine up her ass. It was hard to say "There must have been a miscommunication, but I didn't realize you wanted me to do it before you got back with me with your feedback." 

5. In the spirit of Joni and disclosing large "truths"... I have realized that on some level I am sabatoging my own health the more I learn about nutrition and health because I am overwhelmed by how bad my health is. The more I learn and the more I realize what a healthy body should be doing, the more I realize how unhealthy I must be and how much damage my body has gone through. I realize how hard it is going to be to lose weight and be healthy for the first time in my adult life. I don't like this. I don't want to do all this hard work. I want a fucking quick fix. I wonder if I can afford HGH injections... 

6. It is like day 10 of "no sugar." However, I am being radically honest and saying that this is more like day 10 of no obvious sugar. I haven't had cookies, candy, soda, sugar in coffee or tea, etc. but I know there are things that I have consumed that have sugar in it. I feel like "no obvious sugar" is a definite step up from what I was doing two weeks ago, but in the spirit of honesty I have to say I am not totally, 100% sugar sober. 

I think that needs to be all for today because I am tired of writing about myself and I have a wicked headache. That and it is time to take a shower and change into my PJs. I've got a book to read. 

Peace out. 

Angela - Day 1

Today started with a series of e-mail messages from my boss that caused me to feel very defensive and powerless. I found myself wanting to reply with a shameful note justifying my behavior (I really DIDN'T do anything wrong, BTW), but instead I stuck to the facts and a simple "I'll let you know when I know something else." A good day to begin The Honesty Experiment. 

This is something I've wanted to do for a while (taking the leap to be radically honest -- can't say I really wanted to BLOG about it). I've been trying in little ways for over a year to tell the truth at work, which is the hardest place for me to do so because lots of things go wrong and there are lots of expectations and a good bit of my work is in tech support. You can't REALLY be honest 100% of the time and work in tech support. "Well, ma'm I don't know what in the hell is wrong with your computer, and I sure can't fix it over the phone." 

Truth #1 -- Borrowed from Friday because I am proud of this moment.

Friday was a good day. A client of ours called, after having talking with her supervisor and getting an answer she didn't like, to ask if I could set something up for her. I said "Well, Debbie, I feel like you are putting me in the middle of something here. I could set that up for you, but Brenda made the decision not to go in that direction, so that's what I need to stick with." I just didn't want to be in a "Mom said no, so ask Dad" situation.

Truth #2 -- Matt's feeling sick and he's been on the computer all afternoon. It is a usual practice of mine to ask "What are you doing?" several times a day just because I am nosy and because I want to make sure that he is doing something that I deem productive when I am working (I work from home).  So today I asked "What are you doing?" and he told me he was cleaning up files on the computer, blah blah blah and that it upsets him when I ask him what he's doing because he feels like I am trying to be in control of what he's doing, "like he's 12 or something." Touche. So, instead of responding with my usual "No, I'm just wondering..." line, I told him that I wanted to know because really was wondering what he was doing (i.e. because I am nosy) but also because it makes me mad when he's reading or playing on the Web or whatever while I'm working (i.e. because I am controlling) because I want him to do something productive. Duly noted.