Artist's Way

This week's Artist's Way assignment was a good one! Really makes you think. Whether you've heard of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron or not, it's a fun exercise. (Might make a good meme if anyone is strapped for post ideas) ANYWAY....

Name 5 People You Admire:

1) Jimmy Carter: I just find him fascinating! How many other people can say that being president of the United States really was NOT their greatest accomplishment? He has done so many incredible things. And he seems to be such a good person. I remember watching him on Jon Stewart and he talked about climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro on his 70th birthday! And climbing to the second Everest base camp on his 60th. What a cool guy!

2) Dr. L: A doctor at work. He is so smart and personable and genuinely cares about all his patients. I also think he has a photographic memory because he knows all of his patients by sight and can rattle off all the meds they are on without batting an eye. While I have to pull out their charts and re-read what I wrote 3 weeks ago because everybody just becomes a blur in my head. (thank goodness for pens) But most of all, he has a very creative, out of the box, approach to medicine and I think alot of the success his patients experience is because of this. I would like to be more like him.

3) My college friend, Pig. Pig had a 4.0 in undergrad and then went into medical research after college. She was also training for Ironmans. She finished I think 30th for women in the Ironman in Kona, Hawaii. You know, the big, televised race? She had sponsors and was featured in the tri-magazines and all the while held down a full time job, as well. A very HARD full time job. Eventually, she stopped training so hard and went back to med school where she again, had a 4.0. Now she does surgeries on crazy athletes like herself. She's the most focused person I've ever met. I admire her ability to focus all her energy and keep her eyes unwavering on a goal.

4) My friend, Wheelie. I met Wheelie when I worked on a spinal cord injury floor at a hospital. He taught a class there. He broke his neck when he was in college and has only partial use of his arms, nothing in his legs or trunk. He goes camping and scuba diving and bike riding and kayaking. I can't keep up with him. Plus, he's smart and funny and has a magnetic personality. He always has some kind of scheme cooking. And I know that I only know a small fraction of all the crazy things he is perpetually juggling. Ever have a friend who you feel honored to be friends with? That's Wheelie.

5) Bliss I met her out in California through a mutual friend. She was working in a nursing facility there, just as I was. We were both feeling a bit disillusioned with life and our careers. We took very different paths from there. I moved back home to my family and childhood friends and I'm still in transition. I'm not sure where I'm going from here. She started taking classes and started her own holistic health business where she's the boss. She sees clients on her own terms, not on the insurance company's terms or the staffing company's terms. I admire her courage and vision.

Pretty impressive list. But now: Name 5 People You Secretly Admire:

1) Jimmy Buffet: I don't like his music. I don't think he's a particularly good writer. I don't like his restaurant chains. But I admire the fact that he's found a way to make a living out of basically being a beach bum.

2) Goofy: A former co-worker of mine. He was an OK clinician. He wasn't bad. But he wasn't great. He put in a moderate amount of effort at work. I mean, he showed up, he did his work, he completed his paperwork. But he never put in any extra effort. He just breezed in and breezed back out. Here's the thing: everybody LOVED him! Including me. He was just a happy, funny, fun guy. He was the class clown with the consistent C+ average. I admired his ability to find balance and be happy.

3) My friend, Shara. Shara is a flake. She always has some kind of ridiculous drama going on. She flits from place to place dressed like a hippie saying the most ridiculous things. She's kind of like Phoebe from "Friends". Whenever she leaves the room, everybody rolls their eyes and shakes their heads. Here's the deal though: she can get away with it. It's like she read the rules and didn't like them. So she made up her own rules. And that takes courage of a different sort.

4) My cousin, Andie. She was the quintessential special ed teacher. She worked all the time. She taught special ed in school and tutored kids after school and on weekends. She taught English to English -as-a-second-language kids over the summer and more often than not, they all passed the standardized test at the end of the summer and could go on to the next grade. But then she got married. And had a baby. And she said: I love my work, but I don't want to do this anymore. She quit and became a full time mom. She's a great mom. She did what she said she'd never do. But I've never seen her happier.

5) A friend of a friend, Lexi: I met Lexi when I lived out on the west coast and she's one of the most interesting person I've ever met. Lexi is a stripper. Lexi is also strangely innocent and wholesome. Stripping is her job. It's not who she is. Lexi's husband got really sick and was out of work for 2 years. They were strapped for money. So Lexi started an X rated web site. She posted pictures of herself and other strippers she worked with. She created calenders and memberships where the members get newsletters and emails and get to chat with the girls. And she sells underwear to these men. I remember a conversation where she said that Thursday was the day where she changed her underwear 15 times. She would wear each pair of underwear for and hour and then launder them all. Because telling people that it was "her" underwear if she had never worn it was dishonest. And above all, you must preserve the integrity of your pornographic website, right?

Lastly, name people who are dead who you wish you had met or would like to hang out with in the great beyond. (Like the old question "If you had a dinner party and could invite 7 people who living or dead, who would you invite?") So many people say "Jesus" or "Martin Luther King jr" or "JFK". But I'd invite:

1) Gertrude Stein
2) Isabella Stewart Gardner
3) Oscar Wilde
4) Theodor Giesel (Dr. Seuss)
5) Andy Warhol
6) Antouni Gaudi
7) Queen Elizabeth (the first)

Can you imagine the conversation that would erupt at that table?