Information comes when you need it.

An old friend contacted me today. We haven't spoken for years but, as the old saying goes, within a few minutes we were talking as though we never lost touch.

We worked together in the 80s and what I remember most is that no one -- and I mean no one -- ever had a bad thing to say about her. She went out of her way to make everyone happy. I entered the workforce wired the same way, but I gotta' tell you, she was a mentor for me. She'd elevated good girliness to an art form, and she taught me well.

We laughed about those days for a while...then she stopped laughing. "To be honest," she said, "the good ol' days weren't all that good."

She left the company in the early 90s, took another job and got downsized, got another job and was merged out, got another job and was laid off, and finally decided to go into business herself. In her 40s.

"It was horrible," she said. "I had no idea how to make decisions or how to state my opinion. I only knew how to make people happy."

She said she almost went broke because she never charged enough. (People liked her better because she was cheap.) She ran herself into the ground because she never challenged deadlines. (People liked her because she never asked for more time.) She got an ulcer because she never rocked the boat. (People liked her because she didn't complain.)

None of this surprised me because she was, after all, the Supreme Goddess of Good Girldom. But I have to admit, I was kinda' curious. So I asked her, as one good girl to another, how she turned things around.

"Badly," she said.

She wasn't joking. The woman with a Rolodex of friends now has one or two to her name. ("But they're real," she said. "I don't have kiss butt for them to like me.") She lost a lot of clients, and it wasn't easy to find more. She had to work hard to rebuild her reputation.

She's still an entrepreneur, but she changed businesses twice before settling on what she wanted to do.

"I had to learn a whole new language," she said. "I was like a baby -- or a stroke victim -- I had to learn to talk again, to walk again. I kept bumping into things and falling down and skinning my knee."

She's happier now. She said the journey was worth it. And when I told her about this blog, she offered advice for those, like me, who are trying to change.

"The scary part isn't when you start. Then the world is full of possibilities. You have a glorious idea of where you're going, and you have no idea how many will go wrong," she said. "And the scary part isn't when you're finished because then you've evolved. You've conquered something. You can look back on what you've done and feel really, really proud.

"The scary part is in the middle, when everything's a mess and you're all unsettled, when people say you're screwing up and nobody likes you and they say you're becoming a royal pain in the ass. That's when you have to remember that no one came into this world perfect. You have accept the fact that, yeah, you probably are screwing up, and a lot of people really don't like you, and you probably are a major pain in the ass.

"And that's okay. Tomorrow you'll do a little better. The key is to just keep keeping on."

Playing on iTunes: Again by Donnie McClurkin. Amazing song; amazing voice.

3 weeks/24 weeks

I found an interesting article on CNN.com today. According to this account, it takes approximately three weeks to form a new, positive habit and as many as six months to get rid of a bad habit.

Well that explains a lot, doesn't it?

I've decided to put this theory to the test. For 28 consecutive days (starting, um, tomorrow) I'm going to do some sort of physical exercise: take the dog for a walk, ride my bike, work out, yoga, what have you. We'll see if this little experiment hard-wires the love of exercise into my brain.

Of course, the flip side is that I need to find some habit I'm willing to give up for 24 weeks. Hmmm. A bad habit I need to give up....Surprisingly, the list is staggering. (Just kidding. It's long -- okay, really, really long -- but it's not, like, outrageous...exactly.)

It may be cheating, but I think I'll just extend this little TV hiatus another 22 weeks and see what happens. Of course, that means a total of 24 consecutive weeks of no television. That could be...hard.

Fortunately, it's almost summer. And there's never anything good on television during the summer.

Right?

What I'm listening to right now: Crisis, by Robin Cook. Narrated by George Guidall. If you're a fan of books on CD, you've probably heard Guidall read. He is fantastic!

A flower on the web.

Sometimes you discover wonderful writing in unexpected places -- words so clear and feelings so accessible that it yanks your mind from wherever it may have wandered and focuses your thoughts, for just a moment perhaps, on what someone else wanted to share.

You'll find an example of such writing at the My Tango Year blog. Look for the entry dated Friday, June 1, 2007.

What I'm reading: I haven't started Write. 10 Days to Overcome Writer's Block. Period. Why? Because I write for a living...and I've been writing. For work. Not on my novel. Drat! I did pick up Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. It's a debut novel about corporate layoffs. I've had it for months and never made much progress, but it's turning out to be an enjoyable bedtime read. Besides, finishing it helps with that Get Organized goal!

Back to work tomorrow.

Well, the long Memorial Day weekend is behind us. I hope you had a safe, happy and relaxing three days.

I certainly enjoyed the break from my various freelance writing jobs. In spite of the huge stack of work-related projects that really needed my attention, I biked, read, planted flowers (okay, supervised the planting of flowers) and made a sinfully huge stack of light, golden brown, crispy on the outside-moist of the inside, absolutely fabulous, almond and walnut waffles for breakfast. Yum!

Remember the novel I mentioned in Saturday's post? Well, Mergers & Acquisitions by Dana Vachon is history. I finished it today around noon.

I didn't really get into the book until around page 30, but after that, the writing was pure joy. It's hard to believe this Vachon's debut novel because his control of the craft is amazing. I recommend Mergers & Acquisitions highly.

Playing on iTunes: Writers on Writing podcast. Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett. Guests: Novelists Masha Hamilton, Ellen Sussman and Amanda Ward. This is a great podcast for writers. Get it free from iTunes or from DeMarco-Barrett's website here.

Suddenly, there's so much time...

Here's one of the unexpected consequences (benefits?) of turning off the TV. Suddenly, there seem to be a lot more hours in the day. I mean, A LOT more hours in the day. And I'm very aware of each hour passing.

I finished Martha C. Lawrence's Ashes of Aries a bit sooner than expected, so now I have two new books on my table and a two new footers for my blog:

What I'm reading now:
Fiction: Mergers & Acquisitions, a debut novel by Dana Vachon.
Non-fiction: Write. 10 Days to Overcome Writer's Block. Period. by Karen E. Peterson, Ph.D.

Playing on iTunes: Canyon Legacy from In the Midst of Angels by Dan Gibson. This is very soothing, New Agey album that makes me feel like I'm in a day spa treatment room receiving a massage.

My TV Vacation, Pt. 1

What do you do when you don't watch TV?

The folks at the TV-Turnoff Network have given that a lot of thought, as you might imagine. They've come up with a list of 101 screen-free activities to keep grumpy minds occupied when there's no access to TV.

I found the list squirreled away in one of T-TN's many resources pages. I'll be honest. My first thought was that the list would be geared more to children. Well, guess what? I was wrong. Not only are there are lot of activities for adults, many help increase mindful living -- the state where we give full attention to what's going on around us rather than operating on autopilot.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, who makes frequent appearances on Oprah, has quite a bit to say on the benefits of that!

From the TV-Turnoff Network
"I really didn't like TV-Turnoff Week -- except I did notice that my grades went up and I was in a good mood all week."
-- Drew Henderson, 2nd grader, Donora, Pennsylvania

Am I missing something?

The web is full of articles about a huge fight (yep, another HUGE fight) between Rosie O'Donnell and Elizabeth Hasselbeck on The View.

Is it just me, or is anyone else concerned that the bigger issue -- our growing inability to have anything that resembles civil discourse in this country -- is being ignored? I haven't watched The View in years because the sound of the hosts shrieking at each other is like nails on a blackboard.

I can't stand it.

Oh, and I didn't read the articles about the O'Donnell/Hasselbeck argument, either. The headlines were enough.

Playing on iTunes: The Gods Love Nubia by Heather Headley from the Aida soundtrack. This lady has an incredible voice.