It was about 4 years ago. I was working as an e-commerce consultant at a company that was starting to recognize that, well, e-commerce didn't need much in the way of consulting. I was killing time at the job by helping the marketing department (ok, it was one person) edit articles written by strategists to make them readable by normal people. I had also just gotten my first article published in the Upper Kirby Progressive, nominally about wireless technology, but in reality, 2/3 about learning how to deal with baby poop.
In other words, I was in the middle of my career change.
So, in something akin to a last hurrah for the people they would lay off in a few months, the company put on a very decent Holiday party. We had exotic foods, lots of alcohol, and some mystical entertainment consisting of a palm reader with a rune-picking parrot.
Now, if you've read my cosmic aether posting, you realize that I have a non-scientific tendency to believe in some kind of universal connectivity between people, things, dogs, trees, whatever. But, in no way was I prepared to do anything but laugh at the parrot guy reading palms.
Until he got to me.
The first thing he said when he looked at my palm was, "you're psychic." I admit to losing my poker face to an eyeroll over that one, but he amended it to say, "well, however you want to put it, you have more than your share of intuition. You know what people are feeling..." Ok, if he puts it that way, I *do* exist in a world of intuition; I test nearly 100% iNtuitive on the Myers-Briggs (or Keirsey) test, but as far as I'm concerned, what other people call intuition, I call data collection at a microscopic level. I'm just observant about second and third order things.
"...And you're a performer. But you're shy, too. That's sort of strange, but there it is." Hm. If we're going by the Keirsey test again, depending on time of day, time of month, moment-to-moment anxiety, I can test either Introvert or Extrovert. I love being on stage, but I hide in corners at parties and talk only to people I know.
My face was still (as far as I know) emotion-free. I was not ready to be impressed. The last he could have gotten in a breezy anthropological study of my mingling patterns.
But then the guy says, "...and you're a writer. Creative. No... no, technical. You write about technical things."
Ok, that freaked me out. My writing career was barely out of the gate. One article published, and just making a start on the technology writing for my marketing friend. I looked across the guy's shoulder to my friend Diana who was not keeping a poker face, but I don't think Parrot Boy was paying attention. He was way too intent on my LOVE LINE.
That's when it got spooky.
He mumbled a lot when he got to my love line. It was clear he was uncomfortable with what he saw there on my palm (and I *did* wash first, thank you very much.) Finally, he looks up at me somewhat sheepishly, and looks back down at my palm. "One, two, three...." he says, shaking his head helplessly, "I don't know how many times you've been married, but... All I can think of when I see a hand like his is the quote from Katharine Hepburn. You know, 'Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then. '"
I looked at my palm. Sure enough, the love line ended in what looked like the Mississippi delta. With two marriages under my belt, I was doomed. Dooooomed.
(Unless, of course, it's true that you can alter your fate with some quicky palm plastic surgery, like on a recent episode of the fabulously dramatic and gory Nip/Tuck.)
So, I don't know how it all fits in with my cosmic aether theory, or my other tentative beliefs in the non-physical, but so far the guy's been dead on. I'm now a creative writer working in a technical writing job, I'm a performer who's still shy, and my love life is forever varied and murky. But even if I could change my fate with a little love line lift, I think I'd leave it as is. My murky life gives me so much to write about...
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
when i was a boy
I haven't figured out why yet, but watching a 10-year-old spit like a professional makes me smile.
Standing on the mound, face, ball and hand buried in a much loved glove, the brim of a sweaty cap moving back and forth the only indication that this little elf is shaking off his catcher's sign.
"TIME!!"
The catcher trots up to the mound. I can barely make out what the pitcher is saying. "Hey! Don't curl your fingers up like that! I can't read the sign!" I giggle. This is just too cute. Signs? Two pitches? When did they learn how to get even one over the plate?!
They all make me smile. Little accurate miniatures at that perfect scale of cuteness. Big enough so that they throw and hit with the grace of ballplayers and not the awkwardness of children, but not so big that they've stopped looking for four-leaf clovers in right field.
He spits again. I giggle harder and turn to look at the batter. A lefty. Weirdest stance I have EVER seen. Feet spread wide, toes pointed way out - fourth position maybe? - bat held high directly overhead pointing somewhere behind him. One of the moms yells out, "GET YOUR BAT BACK!" The kid points it even more directly behind him like he's about to cleave a log in two. "THAT'S BETTER!" You're kidding me, right?
Watching a 10-year-old pitch like a real pitcher is an even greater pleasure. Full arm extension, arched back, great follow-through, actually throwing strikes… The kid with the weird stance goes down swinging and the small, determined Roger Clemens wannabe walks back to the mound, concentration unaffected by the thrill of the strikeout. I get a little chill.
The next batter's up. He takes his bat and points immodestly to left field, looking strikingly like Babe Ruth. Quickly he pops up to the shortstop. Oh well. Some of them will learn a little humility eventually, but most of them are boys, and from my experience, don't really grow out of being boys until they're… well… never.
What I enjoy most, though, is not the pitcher shaking off the sign, nor even the foot stamping that occasionally follows to emphasize "no I REALLY do not want to throw that pitch". What I enjoy most is watching one player in particular. She is the only girl remaining in this age bracket, and she just makes me beam with some strange, unfounded pride. She's not my kid, she's just a kid who I've watched grow up in the league and who has always impressed me. I think partly she makes me nostalgic.
The next boy steps up to the plate - a very nice boy who picked up a bat and ball for the first time last year. He's still a little afraid of the ball, but shows a modest determination in the field that I admire greatly. He's not trying to be Jeff Bagwell; he just wants to be part of the team. The bench hollers at him, "C'mon! You can do it!" A slow swing barely gets a piece of the ball, but he legs it out and due to a bad throw by the catcher, he makes it to first. Absolutely beaming.
The girl's on deck, and watching her I think of Dar Williams' song, "When I was a Boy". "I was a kid that you would like, just a small boy on her bike…" I know what this is like. I grew up with a brother 8 years my senior. We played hockey in the kitchen with tennis racquets and tennis balls. We'd put on boxing gloves and "go a few rounds" (resulting in at least one bloody nose. His.) We'd hit golf balls and play baseball in the back yard. By the time I was 8, I was insisting on using a hardball, and even a black eye ("…well you told me to keep my eye on the ball!" - yeesh…) didn't break my enthusiasm. Soft balls were sissy. I liked the weight of the hardball, and I could throw. My brother once bragged to my dad "The kid's got an arm!" My response was "nope, I got two of 'em."
She steps up to the plate, chin set, aggressive stance. Just a small boy with her bat. Not a power hitter by any means. She used to be among the best, but the boys are starting to surpass her on what I suspect is an intimidating uphill battle of comparative strength. Right now, though, it doesn't in the least affect her enthusiasm. She's a fast runner and can almost always connect for a grounder, and she doesn't let me down this time either.
I climbed trees, and I had a fort. I didn't have dolls; I had a mitt. The bottom half of our back screen door was my strike zone and my impromptu catcher. I don't recall, but I imagine we went through a lot of screens over the years. Sadly, even though I lived my boyhood right around the time of the Bad News Bears, Tatum O'Neal had not quite made my entrance into Little League a reality. Even now, 25 years later, there's still only one girl in the 10-12 year old division of our league. How disappointing.
The next batter goes down swinging against our spitting, foot-stamping Pitcher of Immense Seriousness, and my little hero hightails it back to the dugout to put her catcher's gear on. The boys may be surpassing her in hitting, but she's got a heck of an arm (probably two of 'em) and one of the sharpest baseball minds on the field. She sometimes plays first, but more often than not she has the managing position of catcher. If I admire the pitchers their miniature wind-ups, I admire ten times more her handle on the game. The minute the ball hits her glove she's up, arm cocked, staring down the runner on second daring him to steal. It's just a beautiful thing.
Well, the game's starting up again and I just want to watch now. It's a good feeling. Relaxing. Amusing. But, I do have to say, I'm a little jealous. Remembering a time when I too was a boy…
(It's one of those weeks. This is recycled from the Upper Kirby Progressive 6/01)
Standing on the mound, face, ball and hand buried in a much loved glove, the brim of a sweaty cap moving back and forth the only indication that this little elf is shaking off his catcher's sign.
"TIME!!"
The catcher trots up to the mound. I can barely make out what the pitcher is saying. "Hey! Don't curl your fingers up like that! I can't read the sign!" I giggle. This is just too cute. Signs? Two pitches? When did they learn how to get even one over the plate?!
They all make me smile. Little accurate miniatures at that perfect scale of cuteness. Big enough so that they throw and hit with the grace of ballplayers and not the awkwardness of children, but not so big that they've stopped looking for four-leaf clovers in right field.
He spits again. I giggle harder and turn to look at the batter. A lefty. Weirdest stance I have EVER seen. Feet spread wide, toes pointed way out - fourth position maybe? - bat held high directly overhead pointing somewhere behind him. One of the moms yells out, "GET YOUR BAT BACK!" The kid points it even more directly behind him like he's about to cleave a log in two. "THAT'S BETTER!" You're kidding me, right?
Watching a 10-year-old pitch like a real pitcher is an even greater pleasure. Full arm extension, arched back, great follow-through, actually throwing strikes… The kid with the weird stance goes down swinging and the small, determined Roger Clemens wannabe walks back to the mound, concentration unaffected by the thrill of the strikeout. I get a little chill.
The next batter's up. He takes his bat and points immodestly to left field, looking strikingly like Babe Ruth. Quickly he pops up to the shortstop. Oh well. Some of them will learn a little humility eventually, but most of them are boys, and from my experience, don't really grow out of being boys until they're… well… never.
What I enjoy most, though, is not the pitcher shaking off the sign, nor even the foot stamping that occasionally follows to emphasize "no I REALLY do not want to throw that pitch". What I enjoy most is watching one player in particular. She is the only girl remaining in this age bracket, and she just makes me beam with some strange, unfounded pride. She's not my kid, she's just a kid who I've watched grow up in the league and who has always impressed me. I think partly she makes me nostalgic.
The next boy steps up to the plate - a very nice boy who picked up a bat and ball for the first time last year. He's still a little afraid of the ball, but shows a modest determination in the field that I admire greatly. He's not trying to be Jeff Bagwell; he just wants to be part of the team. The bench hollers at him, "C'mon! You can do it!" A slow swing barely gets a piece of the ball, but he legs it out and due to a bad throw by the catcher, he makes it to first. Absolutely beaming.
The girl's on deck, and watching her I think of Dar Williams' song, "When I was a Boy". "I was a kid that you would like, just a small boy on her bike…" I know what this is like. I grew up with a brother 8 years my senior. We played hockey in the kitchen with tennis racquets and tennis balls. We'd put on boxing gloves and "go a few rounds" (resulting in at least one bloody nose. His.) We'd hit golf balls and play baseball in the back yard. By the time I was 8, I was insisting on using a hardball, and even a black eye ("…well you told me to keep my eye on the ball!" - yeesh…) didn't break my enthusiasm. Soft balls were sissy. I liked the weight of the hardball, and I could throw. My brother once bragged to my dad "The kid's got an arm!" My response was "nope, I got two of 'em."
She steps up to the plate, chin set, aggressive stance. Just a small boy with her bat. Not a power hitter by any means. She used to be among the best, but the boys are starting to surpass her on what I suspect is an intimidating uphill battle of comparative strength. Right now, though, it doesn't in the least affect her enthusiasm. She's a fast runner and can almost always connect for a grounder, and she doesn't let me down this time either.
I climbed trees, and I had a fort. I didn't have dolls; I had a mitt. The bottom half of our back screen door was my strike zone and my impromptu catcher. I don't recall, but I imagine we went through a lot of screens over the years. Sadly, even though I lived my boyhood right around the time of the Bad News Bears, Tatum O'Neal had not quite made my entrance into Little League a reality. Even now, 25 years later, there's still only one girl in the 10-12 year old division of our league. How disappointing.
The next batter goes down swinging against our spitting, foot-stamping Pitcher of Immense Seriousness, and my little hero hightails it back to the dugout to put her catcher's gear on. The boys may be surpassing her in hitting, but she's got a heck of an arm (probably two of 'em) and one of the sharpest baseball minds on the field. She sometimes plays first, but more often than not she has the managing position of catcher. If I admire the pitchers their miniature wind-ups, I admire ten times more her handle on the game. The minute the ball hits her glove she's up, arm cocked, staring down the runner on second daring him to steal. It's just a beautiful thing.
Well, the game's starting up again and I just want to watch now. It's a good feeling. Relaxing. Amusing. But, I do have to say, I'm a little jealous. Remembering a time when I too was a boy…
(It's one of those weeks. This is recycled from the Upper Kirby Progressive 6/01)
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
remains of the day
My friend and I were talking the other day with my buddy Kirk. It was a brief thing, he came in, found us having coffee, said hi, talked for a few minutes, and left. When he left, he said, "Be good."
Which I thought was parental and weird, but it's Kirk, so anything goes.
It immediately triggered the collection of neurons that store the little ditty, "When she was good she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was better." So, I said it out loud, because I have a limited buffer between brain and mouth (already mentioned in this space) and immediately decided that it would make a great epitaph.
Which, of course, led to the discussion about the disposal of human remains in general: our thoughts about burials, and cremations, epitaphs and final resting places, etc. What we both discovered was that in our medium length lives (hopefully at minimum, mid-life) neither of us had developed an attachment to any single place we'd want to be buried in or have our ashes scattered over.
The pressure was suddenly overwhelming.
I mean, I have a limited amount of time here and I don't travel that much. How likely is it that I'm just going to stumble on the perfect place to scatter my ashes? And, then to come up with the ultimate epitaph that someone would want to make a rubbing of and frame? Or to come up with a disposal method that makes your family and friends think, "That is SO her..."?
I have a serious dramatic side, which is a little odd given that I'm mostly an introvert. I want my death to be just as dramatic as anything else I do. I mean, NOT the manner in which I die. I'm aiming for minimal drama there: no falling space debris, no accidental falling down elevator shafts, no drowning, no suffocating, no burning, no crashing, no knifing, no shooting, etc. Nice quiet stroke in my sleep sounds ideal. But, I want my memorial to be "SO me".
So, I'm going to brainstorm here a little about the disposal of my mortal remains. There are three elements to this process I need to consider. Method of disposal, location of final resting place, and the clever epitaph. I'll take them one at a time:
Method: Ah, the age old question: worms or fire? Tough one. I suppose there are other methods aside from burial and cremation. I can always request to be "buried at sea", but that seems irrational, since I haven't spent an enjoyable moment in the ocean since Jaws. I could also send my remains into space, which makes a little sense because I'm part astronomer. I know there's a company that does this because they're in Houston, and I sent them a resume once. (The company is called Celestis, and their website is currently "under construction", but searching for brought me to this interesting Ash Scattering site and its parent Death Care site, both of which are evidence that there's a web page for everything...) Cryogenics is out because I suspect that if the technology ever existed to thaw people out and, like, y'know, make them *alive* again, I'd probably spend weeks shivering uncomfortably, drinking lots of coffee, and standing hopelessly by the fire. There's the Fargo wood-chipper method, of course, but that's a hair gruesome. The ice floe things sounds both chilly and a little too native for me, but I do like the idea of being set afloat in a burning boat. Very dramatic. Very Viking.
Situation: Unresolved.
Resolution: Dependent on Location.
Location: I have lived by the shore in New Jersey, in upstate New York, in Seattle, WA, and in Houston, TX. Ithaca and Seattle were lovely, but they were only where I went to school(s). I've been running away from New Jersey all my life; it's unlikely I'd want to end up there. Houston... well... It's not that Houston sucks (which... it does...) but I've already decided I don't want to grow old here, so being either underground or scattered about here after I'm dead is definitely not in my plans.
Situation: Unsolved.
Resolution: Travel more. Much much more. Also, move someplace less... I don't know... restless.
Epitaph: This is one of those times that it sucks being a writer. Not that I care what anyone else thinks, I just feel pressured to come up with something quotable, you know? Fresh, new, clever... And, of course, SO me.
Situation: Unresolved.
Resolution: Write an epitaph a week. Heck. I'll blog it...
In any case, hopefully I still have some time on this. I'm not quite done being good.
Or bad.
heh.
Which I thought was parental and weird, but it's Kirk, so anything goes.
It immediately triggered the collection of neurons that store the little ditty, "When she was good she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was better." So, I said it out loud, because I have a limited buffer between brain and mouth (already mentioned in this space) and immediately decided that it would make a great epitaph.
Which, of course, led to the discussion about the disposal of human remains in general: our thoughts about burials, and cremations, epitaphs and final resting places, etc. What we both discovered was that in our medium length lives (hopefully at minimum, mid-life) neither of us had developed an attachment to any single place we'd want to be buried in or have our ashes scattered over.
The pressure was suddenly overwhelming.
I mean, I have a limited amount of time here and I don't travel that much. How likely is it that I'm just going to stumble on the perfect place to scatter my ashes? And, then to come up with the ultimate epitaph that someone would want to make a rubbing of and frame? Or to come up with a disposal method that makes your family and friends think, "That is SO her..."?
I have a serious dramatic side, which is a little odd given that I'm mostly an introvert. I want my death to be just as dramatic as anything else I do. I mean, NOT the manner in which I die. I'm aiming for minimal drama there: no falling space debris, no accidental falling down elevator shafts, no drowning, no suffocating, no burning, no crashing, no knifing, no shooting, etc. Nice quiet stroke in my sleep sounds ideal. But, I want my memorial to be "SO me".
So, I'm going to brainstorm here a little about the disposal of my mortal remains. There are three elements to this process I need to consider. Method of disposal, location of final resting place, and the clever epitaph. I'll take them one at a time:
Method: Ah, the age old question: worms or fire? Tough one. I suppose there are other methods aside from burial and cremation. I can always request to be "buried at sea", but that seems irrational, since I haven't spent an enjoyable moment in the ocean since Jaws. I could also send my remains into space, which makes a little sense because I'm part astronomer. I know there's a company that does this because they're in Houston, and I sent them a resume once. (The company is called Celestis, and their website is currently "under construction", but searching for brought me to this interesting Ash Scattering site and its parent Death Care site, both of which are evidence that there's a web page for everything...) Cryogenics is out because I suspect that if the technology ever existed to thaw people out and, like, y'know, make them *alive* again, I'd probably spend weeks shivering uncomfortably, drinking lots of coffee, and standing hopelessly by the fire. There's the Fargo wood-chipper method, of course, but that's a hair gruesome. The ice floe things sounds both chilly and a little too native for me, but I do like the idea of being set afloat in a burning boat. Very dramatic. Very Viking.
Situation: Unresolved.
Resolution: Dependent on Location.
Location: I have lived by the shore in New Jersey, in upstate New York, in Seattle, WA, and in Houston, TX. Ithaca and Seattle were lovely, but they were only where I went to school(s). I've been running away from New Jersey all my life; it's unlikely I'd want to end up there. Houston... well... It's not that Houston sucks (which... it does...) but I've already decided I don't want to grow old here, so being either underground or scattered about here after I'm dead is definitely not in my plans.
Situation: Unsolved.
Resolution: Travel more. Much much more. Also, move someplace less... I don't know... restless.
Epitaph: This is one of those times that it sucks being a writer. Not that I care what anyone else thinks, I just feel pressured to come up with something quotable, you know? Fresh, new, clever... And, of course, SO me.
Situation: Unresolved.
Resolution: Write an epitaph a week. Heck. I'll blog it...
In any case, hopefully I still have some time on this. I'm not quite done being good.
Or bad.
heh.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
the dog/child paradigm
It's hot in my house. It's a big house, no central a/c, only two working window units, and a couple of strategically placed fans.
The two functioning units are in the kitchen and my bedroom. So, when I come home from a day like yesterday - several hours driving around in ultra-hot Houston with the top down, followed by two hours on stage, under hot lights, wearing snappy looking, but polyester, clothing - I'm not likely to drop my drawers in the breakfast nook just to get a breeze.
So, of course, I head up to my bedroom and arrange myself right between the a/c and the fan and get as naked as possible.
(Note: cold weather is better than hot for one reason: in cold you can always add layers, in hot, there is really only so naked you can get...)
Unfortunately for my dog, this means she gets absolutely minimal attention from me. I pour the food, I pour the water and I run up the stairs, leaving a trail of fashionable, but possibly sweaty, clothing behind me. To Sophie, this is unacceptable.
You see, she's not allowed in my bedroom.
Now, Sophie is a weird little dog. She's pretty smart, she knows what she's not supposed to do, but has difficulty controlling her impulses. (In this way she's much like my son, who is, in fact, a lot like me...) For instance, she knows she's not supposed to jump up on people (partly because she's knee high on all fours, which puts her enthusiastic greetings pretty much at crotch level...) So, when new people come over she does this cute little jump up, sit down, jump up, sit down, jump up, sit down dance. She even has the grace to look embarrassed at her inability to sit for more than a third of a second.
She also knows she's not supposed to get on the couch. But, lately she's become a wuss when it comes to thunderstorms. So, at the first crack of lightning, she comes over to where I'm sitting on the couch and first puts her nose under my wrist and nudges my arm around her neck. The >pat< >pat<
And, she does it like she thinks I don't know that she's getting up on the couch. Like, "I'm not on the couch. I'm on your lap. It's TOTALLY different."
But last night she did something new. She has snuck upstairs during thunderstorms in the middle of the night, but last night there was no thunderstorm. Just a need for company. A need for attention. A need to be reassured by mom that even though I've totally ignored her, I still love her. My son used to yell to me from the bottom of the stairs when I crashed in a nap after work - "Mom? Mom? Mom. Mom? MOM!!! Mom?" "WHAAAAAAT?!?!?" - just to make sure I hadn't snuck out and run away while pretending to get some rest...
Last night Sophie did her impression of a child at bedtime. I was already half asleep when I heard her jingling tags at the bottom of my stairs. She didn't have to go out. She had food. She had water. There was not a cloud in the sky.
>jingle<
>jingle< >jingle<
I ignored it. I fell into a fuzzy sleep.
Three times I heard the jingle in my sleep, half woke up, and fell back to sleep. It finally dawned on me that the jingling wasn't at the bottom of the stairs any longer, and I woke up fully. It was 3am. Sophie was on her way up the stairs. I watched her with my eyes half closed. She got close to the bed, then went into my bathroom and drank out of my toilet.
"MOM! CAN I HAVE A GLASS OF WATER!??!"
She came over to the bed, laid down next to it for a half a second, got up, poked her nose at me, and went back down the stairs.
"MOM!! CAN I HAVE A GOOD NIGHT KISS!!??!"
If that had been all, I would have gone back to sleep and not even remembered it. But she did the whole thing - jingle jingle, up the stairs, slurp slurp, lay down, poke, down the stairs - twice more. It was all I could do to not just laugh out loud at her.
It's still hot out, but today I'm downstairs spending time with my pup: petting her, talking to her, rubbing her with my feet... I'd play catch with her, but she won't get up and is just laying naked in front of the fan.
Lazy dog.
The two functioning units are in the kitchen and my bedroom. So, when I come home from a day like yesterday - several hours driving around in ultra-hot Houston with the top down, followed by two hours on stage, under hot lights, wearing snappy looking, but polyester, clothing - I'm not likely to drop my drawers in the breakfast nook just to get a breeze.
So, of course, I head up to my bedroom and arrange myself right between the a/c and the fan and get as naked as possible.
(Note: cold weather is better than hot for one reason: in cold you can always add layers, in hot, there is really only so naked you can get...)
Unfortunately for my dog, this means she gets absolutely minimal attention from me. I pour the food, I pour the water and I run up the stairs, leaving a trail of fashionable, but possibly sweaty, clothing behind me. To Sophie, this is unacceptable.
You see, she's not allowed in my bedroom.
Now, Sophie is a weird little dog. She's pretty smart, she knows what she's not supposed to do, but has difficulty controlling her impulses. (In this way she's much like my son, who is, in fact, a lot like me...) For instance, she knows she's not supposed to jump up on people (partly because she's knee high on all fours, which puts her enthusiastic greetings pretty much at crotch level...) So, when new people come over she does this cute little jump up, sit down, jump up, sit down, jump up, sit down dance. She even has the grace to look embarrassed at her inability to sit for more than a third of a second.
She also knows she's not supposed to get on the couch. But, lately she's become a wuss when it comes to thunderstorms. So, at the first crack of lightning, she comes over to where I'm sitting on the couch and first puts her nose under my wrist and nudges my arm around her neck. The >pat< >pat<
And, she does it like she thinks I don't know that she's getting up on the couch. Like, "I'm not on the couch. I'm on your lap. It's TOTALLY different."
But last night she did something new. She has snuck upstairs during thunderstorms in the middle of the night, but last night there was no thunderstorm. Just a need for company. A need for attention. A need to be reassured by mom that even though I've totally ignored her, I still love her. My son used to yell to me from the bottom of the stairs when I crashed in a nap after work - "Mom? Mom? Mom. Mom? MOM!!! Mom?" "WHAAAAAAT?!?!?" - just to make sure I hadn't snuck out and run away while pretending to get some rest...
Last night Sophie did her impression of a child at bedtime. I was already half asleep when I heard her jingling tags at the bottom of my stairs. She didn't have to go out. She had food. She had water. There was not a cloud in the sky.
>jingle<
>jingle< >jingle<
I ignored it. I fell into a fuzzy sleep.
Three times I heard the jingle in my sleep, half woke up, and fell back to sleep. It finally dawned on me that the jingling wasn't at the bottom of the stairs any longer, and I woke up fully. It was 3am. Sophie was on her way up the stairs. I watched her with my eyes half closed. She got close to the bed, then went into my bathroom and drank out of my toilet.
"MOM! CAN I HAVE A GLASS OF WATER!??!"
She came over to the bed, laid down next to it for a half a second, got up, poked her nose at me, and went back down the stairs.
"MOM!! CAN I HAVE A GOOD NIGHT KISS!!??!"
If that had been all, I would have gone back to sleep and not even remembered it. But she did the whole thing - jingle jingle, up the stairs, slurp slurp, lay down, poke, down the stairs - twice more. It was all I could do to not just laugh out loud at her.
It's still hot out, but today I'm downstairs spending time with my pup: petting her, talking to her, rubbing her with my feet... I'd play catch with her, but she won't get up and is just laying naked in front of the fan.
Lazy dog.
digger
Is it just me, or does "Digger the Dermatophyte", Lamisil's repugnant mascot, make you vow to chop your toes off if you ever develop nail fungus instead of living for one moment with the infective, pus-colored, and clearly evil creatures inhabiting your nail beds?
barf.
I want to hear from the Lamisil marketing folks here. I want to see the results of focus groups, I want to see the studies... and my god, I want to know what kind of horrific ad campaigns were discarded in favor of the fungal, chewy, snot monster...
ew.
ew ew ew.
EW.
Five bucks says they'll come out with Digger the plush toy.
barf.
I want to hear from the Lamisil marketing folks here. I want to see the results of focus groups, I want to see the studies... and my god, I want to know what kind of horrific ad campaigns were discarded in favor of the fungal, chewy, snot monster...
ew.
ew ew ew.
EW.
Five bucks says they'll come out with Digger the plush toy.
last minute edit
A few days ago, I wrote an entry in this blog, dated it today, and saved it as a draft, just waiting to click the right button and tell the world (my very small version of it) some news, and how I came to the decision that I had.
Most of the entry stands as is, but as usual, at heart I'm more of an editor than a writer. So I edit.
I have been singing with a group called the Lager Rhythms for 10 years. For the past 4 years I have considered leaving at various times for various reasons, but I've always been sucked back in for one more concert or to finish one more CD or because one particular member of the group makes overt, threatening moves when I bring the subject up...
...In the nicest possible way, of course...
We released our 3rd CD in May. Since then, I've driven my son to New Mexico to live with his father for high school, I've had relationship ups and downs, I've put my house on the market, and I've had job anxiety. It's been a busy time, and I was left feeling less than perky.
So, in the last few months I've spent a lot of time trying to get myself out of my little ditch-o'-blues (although, to be honest, the melodrama often gives me more to write about...) and trying to determine what it is that actually makes me happy, and how I can do this elusive thing in such a way that I can answer the question, "Sooo, what do you do for a living?" with "Oh, I do exactly the thing that I love to do most..." (no smart ass comments, thank you...)
I do love singing with my group. We have a blast at rehearsals, they are some of my best friends in Houston. I've been with the group longer than I'd been with both husbands combined. It's been my longest lasting relationship-by-choice ever.
But singing is not my passion. It's fun. I enjoy it. I have actually gotten fairly good at it over the years with the group. I'm now enough of a intuitive alto (i.e. I feel weird unless I'm singing the uncomfortable, but way cool, harmony part) that I no longer sing melody along with the radio, and my instinct is to sing backup for my other musical friends.
But it's still not my passion.
Writing these essays to some imagined audience makes me happy. I love this. I could do this ten hours a day and forget to go pee. I want to be a columnist. I want to be a syndicated columnist, if you must know, but that sounds a little cocky from someone who's currently employed as a techwriter and has a mere blog.
But that's what I want to do.
So, the plan for this entry was to apologize to my friends in the group, and to say goodbye to the Lager Rhythm fans and to thank them for 10 great years. Last night's gig at the Duck was going to be my last. I was going to take all that time freed up from rehearsals working towards getting myself published in an increasingly impressive list of publications. Because... that's what I want to do.
But, plans change. It was a good show. It felt good to be on stage and get to pretend to not be an introvert for a little while. I got a chance to remember that it's not just threat of bodily harm that keeps me in the group. I'm an addict. I get a big high from the performing thing.
Soooooo... I'm rethinking. I'm not going to stay in the group forever. Ten years is a long time to be doing Zombie Jamboree, but I'm not quite ready to leave yet.
I just hope writing and singing is easier than snapping and singing at the same time. 'Cos I suck at that...
Most of the entry stands as is, but as usual, at heart I'm more of an editor than a writer. So I edit.
I have been singing with a group called the Lager Rhythms for 10 years. For the past 4 years I have considered leaving at various times for various reasons, but I've always been sucked back in for one more concert or to finish one more CD or because one particular member of the group makes overt, threatening moves when I bring the subject up...
...In the nicest possible way, of course...
We released our 3rd CD in May. Since then, I've driven my son to New Mexico to live with his father for high school, I've had relationship ups and downs, I've put my house on the market, and I've had job anxiety. It's been a busy time, and I was left feeling less than perky.
So, in the last few months I've spent a lot of time trying to get myself out of my little ditch-o'-blues (although, to be honest, the melodrama often gives me more to write about...) and trying to determine what it is that actually makes me happy, and how I can do this elusive thing in such a way that I can answer the question, "Sooo, what do you do for a living?" with "Oh, I do exactly the thing that I love to do most..." (no smart ass comments, thank you...)
I do love singing with my group. We have a blast at rehearsals, they are some of my best friends in Houston. I've been with the group longer than I'd been with both husbands combined. It's been my longest lasting relationship-by-choice ever.
But singing is not my passion. It's fun. I enjoy it. I have actually gotten fairly good at it over the years with the group. I'm now enough of a intuitive alto (i.e. I feel weird unless I'm singing the uncomfortable, but way cool, harmony part) that I no longer sing melody along with the radio, and my instinct is to sing backup for my other musical friends.
But it's still not my passion.
Writing these essays to some imagined audience makes me happy. I love this. I could do this ten hours a day and forget to go pee. I want to be a columnist. I want to be a syndicated columnist, if you must know, but that sounds a little cocky from someone who's currently employed as a techwriter and has a mere blog.
But that's what I want to do.
So, the plan for this entry was to apologize to my friends in the group, and to say goodbye to the Lager Rhythm fans and to thank them for 10 great years. Last night's gig at the Duck was going to be my last. I was going to take all that time freed up from rehearsals working towards getting myself published in an increasingly impressive list of publications. Because... that's what I want to do.
But, plans change. It was a good show. It felt good to be on stage and get to pretend to not be an introvert for a little while. I got a chance to remember that it's not just threat of bodily harm that keeps me in the group. I'm an addict. I get a big high from the performing thing.
Soooooo... I'm rethinking. I'm not going to stay in the group forever. Ten years is a long time to be doing Zombie Jamboree, but I'm not quite ready to leave yet.
I just hope writing and singing is easier than snapping and singing at the same time. 'Cos I suck at that...
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
reusable pumpkin
My nomination for best product of the year (and for all I know it's been around forever and I just saw it for the first time the other day) is the fake, carvable pumpkin.
It's lightweight. It's not messy. It's imperfectly shaped. Best of all, if you forget it outside until mid-November (uh... not that I do this...) it doesn't turn into a messy glob of greenish/blue pumpkin pulp that you have to scrape off your porch.
I'm getting two.
It's lightweight. It's not messy. It's imperfectly shaped. Best of all, if you forget it outside until mid-November (uh... not that I do this...) it doesn't turn into a messy glob of greenish/blue pumpkin pulp that you have to scrape off your porch.
I'm getting two.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
because
"Why do I have to go to bed?"
"Because you have to get up early for school"
"Why?"
"Because you need to learn new things."
"Why?"
"So you can go to college or become a musician or an artist."
"Why?"
"Because one day you'll need to make a living and support a family."
"Why?"
"Because I won't be able to take care of you forever."
"Why?"
"Because I'll get old and won't be able to work or make money to feed you."
"Why?"
"Because that's how the world goes."
"Oh…"
"But, why do I have to go to bed?"
"Because I'm YOUR MOTHER and I SAID SO!"
I promised myself it would never happen, but it did. It's really quite startling to discover that in spite of your best intentions, there's no getting around the "because I said so" thing. In fact, I believe there is a "Because I said so" gene. It's one of those genes that lie dormant for many years, and only under the extreme stress and pressure of those increasingly atomically-sized "why" questions, combined with the imminent approach of the season finale of ER, does it express itself. It really has nothing to do with self-control. It's genetic. It's primitive. Blue-green algae say it to their offspring when the season finale of blue-green algae ER is about to start. I promise you.
So, I have accepted that "because I said so" is and always has been a perfectly acceptable reason for almost any series of questions my son tosses at me that goes on longer than 2 minutes. I no longer fear retribution from the gods of Complete Explanations, nor do I fear that my son will grow up frustrated and stunted because he does not have the encyclopedic answers to all the known questions in the universe. I have embraced the simplicity of "Because." and I have made it mine.
But, there's another gene that I've never been quite as sure of. It's the "your mother is always right" gene. See, I know I say incredibly stupid things sometimes, and my son, who is unnecessarily bright, is always quick to correct me, and I am thus humbled by the presence of the "always." But I feel certain that there is something to it, and I've therefore been considering staking my claim to at least "usually". The only question that I need to answer before accepting the Maternal Omniscience gene is "can I apply this to my own mother?" Now, in spite of her unusually excellent foresight regarding the men I date, it's been historically very hard for me to accept that my mother is right about anything with any measurably greater accuracy than I am.
That is, until the other day.
I was on the phone with my mom, and while we were in the middle of a riveting discussion about whether or not a friend of her friend should sell the wicker furniture she's stored for 7 years before she moves to Minneapolis, and by the way, can I believe who she met in the grocery store the night before!?, she interrupts to tell me that her handyman just showed up to get a bird out of their chimney. It had apparently rained the previous night, and my parents had heard funny noises in the rec room so dad called the handyman and told them a bird had gotten into the chimney.
Now generally my mother will happily let me sit on the phone and listen as she conducts her daily business. I think it's for a similar reason that both my parents leave the TV sets on all day. They just like the company. So when the guy appears in the kitchen with the bird in tow, my mom does not tell me she'll call me back, she instead just screams. "AAAAH! Get it out of here!""please, just take it outside" right in my ear. I tease her for being a total coward "It's a BIRD mom, not disease-ridden vermin, and most likely, NOT a predator," and she says, "You don't understand, this was HUGE!"
Immediately I am overwhelmed with disbelief and feel an urge to disprove her. "Mom, how big could it be? The stuff about Santa is a myth..."
Ignoring me, she says, "No, really this was the biggest bird I've seen! He was holding it in his arms like a baby!"
I am unimpressed and am thinking 'wingspan' when she says, "What's the biggest bird you can think of?"
I pause. "An ostrich."
Even though it's a perfectly good answer to her question, she gets mad. "Oh, stop."
"A turkey?" I suggest. "They're big... Ok, Mom, how 'bout a duck. Is it as big as a duck?"
"It's BIGGER than a duck."
"It's BIGGER THAN A DUCK!??!? Mom, c'mon."
"Ok, it's *almost* bigger than a duck..."
Ha! Now I'm starting to swell with academic pride. "Mom, it can't be almost bigger than anything. It's either bigger than a duck, or it's not. Think about it. How can it be ALMOST bigger than a duck?"
My mother has no idea what I'm talking about because she's still scared to death of her deadly downy friend and isn't thinking clearly. "I don't know, and I don't care, it's huge and it's black. Like a REALLY big crow."
I'm going back to the size issue again. My mom has a tendency to exaggerate during moments of fear, and I'm really dying to know how big this thing really was. "Mom, could you *carve* it?" This is my breast size vs. wingspan question.
"Oh don't be disgusting." My mom is inflicted with the standard urban dichotomy of Animals and Food. They are in her mind two very distinct things, and please don't make her investigate the possibility that she's occasionally been known to avoid reality.
Meanwhile, the pterodactylish creature is taken outside by what I'm sure is a VERY amused handyman, and my mom and I get back to our very important conversation about how many successful marriages we can name in my generation (none). Eventually we hang up.
About an hour later she calls me back. No hello. Just simply "It was a duck."
I'll be darned. It was almost bigger than a duck.
It may not be "always", and it may not even be "usually", but at the very least, Mothers are occasionally right. Now, does someone want to tell my son that?
This one is recycled from the Upper Kirby Progressive, May 2001
"Because you have to get up early for school"
"Why?"
"Because you need to learn new things."
"Why?"
"So you can go to college or become a musician or an artist."
"Why?"
"Because one day you'll need to make a living and support a family."
"Why?"
"Because I won't be able to take care of you forever."
"Why?"
"Because I'll get old and won't be able to work or make money to feed you."
"Why?"
"Because that's how the world goes."
"Oh…"
"But, why do I have to go to bed?"
"Because I'm YOUR MOTHER and I SAID SO!"
I promised myself it would never happen, but it did. It's really quite startling to discover that in spite of your best intentions, there's no getting around the "because I said so" thing. In fact, I believe there is a "Because I said so" gene. It's one of those genes that lie dormant for many years, and only under the extreme stress and pressure of those increasingly atomically-sized "why" questions, combined with the imminent approach of the season finale of ER, does it express itself. It really has nothing to do with self-control. It's genetic. It's primitive. Blue-green algae say it to their offspring when the season finale of blue-green algae ER is about to start. I promise you.
So, I have accepted that "because I said so" is and always has been a perfectly acceptable reason for almost any series of questions my son tosses at me that goes on longer than 2 minutes. I no longer fear retribution from the gods of Complete Explanations, nor do I fear that my son will grow up frustrated and stunted because he does not have the encyclopedic answers to all the known questions in the universe. I have embraced the simplicity of "Because." and I have made it mine.
But, there's another gene that I've never been quite as sure of. It's the "your mother is always right" gene. See, I know I say incredibly stupid things sometimes, and my son, who is unnecessarily bright, is always quick to correct me, and I am thus humbled by the presence of the "always." But I feel certain that there is something to it, and I've therefore been considering staking my claim to at least "usually". The only question that I need to answer before accepting the Maternal Omniscience gene is "can I apply this to my own mother?" Now, in spite of her unusually excellent foresight regarding the men I date, it's been historically very hard for me to accept that my mother is right about anything with any measurably greater accuracy than I am.
That is, until the other day.
I was on the phone with my mom, and while we were in the middle of a riveting discussion about whether or not a friend of her friend should sell the wicker furniture she's stored for 7 years before she moves to Minneapolis, and by the way, can I believe who she met in the grocery store the night before!?, she interrupts to tell me that her handyman just showed up to get a bird out of their chimney. It had apparently rained the previous night, and my parents had heard funny noises in the rec room so dad called the handyman and told them a bird had gotten into the chimney.
Now generally my mother will happily let me sit on the phone and listen as she conducts her daily business. I think it's for a similar reason that both my parents leave the TV sets on all day. They just like the company. So when the guy appears in the kitchen with the bird in tow, my mom does not tell me she'll call me back, she instead just screams. "AAAAH! Get it out of here!"
Immediately I am overwhelmed with disbelief and feel an urge to disprove her. "Mom, how big could it be? The stuff about Santa is a myth..."
Ignoring me, she says, "No, really this was the biggest bird I've seen! He was holding it in his arms like a baby!"
I am unimpressed and am thinking 'wingspan' when she says, "What's the biggest bird you can think of?"
I pause. "An ostrich."
Even though it's a perfectly good answer to her question, she gets mad. "Oh, stop."
"A turkey?" I suggest. "They're big... Ok, Mom, how 'bout a duck. Is it as big as a duck?"
"It's BIGGER than a duck."
"It's BIGGER THAN A DUCK!??!? Mom, c'mon."
"Ok, it's *almost* bigger than a duck..."
Ha! Now I'm starting to swell with academic pride. "Mom, it can't be almost bigger than anything. It's either bigger than a duck, or it's not. Think about it. How can it be ALMOST bigger than a duck?"
My mother has no idea what I'm talking about because she's still scared to death of her deadly downy friend and isn't thinking clearly. "I don't know, and I don't care, it's huge and it's black. Like a REALLY big crow."
I'm going back to the size issue again. My mom has a tendency to exaggerate during moments of fear, and I'm really dying to know how big this thing really was. "Mom, could you *carve* it?" This is my breast size vs. wingspan question.
"Oh don't be disgusting." My mom is inflicted with the standard urban dichotomy of Animals and Food. They are in her mind two very distinct things, and please don't make her investigate the possibility that she's occasionally been known to avoid reality.
Meanwhile, the pterodactylish creature is taken outside by what I'm sure is a VERY amused handyman, and my mom and I get back to our very important conversation about how many successful marriages we can name in my generation (none). Eventually we hang up.
About an hour later she calls me back. No hello. Just simply "It was a duck."
I'll be darned. It was almost bigger than a duck.
It may not be "always", and it may not even be "usually", but at the very least, Mothers are occasionally right. Now, does someone want to tell my son that?
This one is recycled from the Upper Kirby Progressive, May 2001
Friday, September 10, 2004
democracy vs. capitalism
Why does it seem to me that when the US goes out and tries to spread democracy, what they're really talking about is spreading capitalism? Particularly a capitalism that US corporations (typically owned by cohorts of the administration) can take advantage of.
I mean, hell, we don't even have real democracy in this country. It's not even a representative government when you figure in all the gerrymandering, election fraud, and corporate ownership of politicians. We're trying to spread ourselves alright, but we're really not anything to be proud of at the moment.
I feel like part of a big, yucky virus.
As you can tell, I'm not feeling funny or creative today. I'm annoyed, frustrated, and so appalled that I can't even bring myself to write in my appalled blog. I listened to KPFT (Houston's Pacifica radio station) this afternoon, and they had on someone who was promoting a screening tonight about socialism and communism and the ultimate need for an armed revolution in this country. Not that I think this is anything but extremist rhetoric, but the fact that it's getting talked about from the left means that the time is approaching when the radical right and the radical left stretch so far from the middle that they wrap around and meet, proving without doubt that we live in a closed universe.
It's giving me a headache...
I mean, hell, we don't even have real democracy in this country. It's not even a representative government when you figure in all the gerrymandering, election fraud, and corporate ownership of politicians. We're trying to spread ourselves alright, but we're really not anything to be proud of at the moment.
I feel like part of a big, yucky virus.
As you can tell, I'm not feeling funny or creative today. I'm annoyed, frustrated, and so appalled that I can't even bring myself to write in my appalled blog. I listened to KPFT (Houston's Pacifica radio station) this afternoon, and they had on someone who was promoting a screening tonight about socialism and communism and the ultimate need for an armed revolution in this country. Not that I think this is anything but extremist rhetoric, but the fact that it's getting talked about from the left means that the time is approaching when the radical right and the radical left stretch so far from the middle that they wrap around and meet, proving without doubt that we live in a closed universe.
It's giving me a headache...
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
freedom is choice...
I have CHOSEN to reclaim the side of the couch that was not originally mine. I am somewhat irritated that I hadn't realized that it was more comfortable over here before.
I have also chosen to be addicted to the ongoing CSI marathon running on Spike TV - TV for men. I am not a man. I am breaking the rules. My choice.
I used to think I was breaking the rules when I wore men's watches. Until someone stopped me and asked, "Is it yours? Then it's not a man's watch, is it?"
It is sooo hard to be a rebel...
I have also chosen to be addicted to the ongoing CSI marathon running on Spike TV - TV for men. I am not a man. I am breaking the rules. My choice.
I used to think I was breaking the rules when I wore men's watches. Until someone stopped me and asked, "Is it yours? Then it's not a man's watch, is it?"
It is sooo hard to be a rebel...
freedom
I wrote recently that I've never lived alone in my near 40 years of life. I also wrote that that day would soon be coming.
Well, that day is here.
Today is the first day in my life that I woke up to a house that would not get any fuller in the forseeable future. I woke up to a phone call from my buddy Kirk bugging me for the composite cd that I'd promised him. Ugh. Hate waking up to phone calls. Much prefer to wake up to a warm body, even if that warm body is frustrated and cranky because it's out of work.
My mom once quoted a Yiddish proverb that has stuck with me, but which I can't remember in its exact form which I believe sounded more lyrical. Anyway, it's something like "If you pretend to be asleep, eventually, you'll be asleep." So, I'm thinking that I should pretend to enjoy my freedom so that eventually, I will.
Because right now, all I feel is alone. And it sucks.
I spent a lot of yesterday, including the drive home from seeing the barista off, trying to figure out how to celebrate a freedom that I'm not sure I really want.
(And before I go any further, I want to assure my dear readers that I'm not going to moon about, forever whining about my aloneness. I'm obviously going to get over it in a couple of days, so just shut up while I use my personal melodrama as writing fodder...)
The first celebratory thing I came up with is "TAKE BACK MY SIDE OF THE COUCH!" This was an exciting event, marked by, well, my sitting on the side of the couch I used to sit on. Not exactly what you'd call a great act of civil disobedience, and not exactly satisfying anyway, 'cos I'd found a certain comfort on the other side, but I did it. I pretended to relish it so that eventually I would enjoy the fact that I could sit on WHATEVER FUCKING SIDE OF THE COUCH I WANTED TO. Dammit. (This goes for the bed, too... Now I have the light and can read until whenever I want to... WHOOO HOOO!!! Whatever.)
Then I thought about what it was to REALLY be free. How else could I celebrate the utter lack of responsibility I now had to anyone except my job and my bills? (Yeah, I know, still a lot of responsibility, but really a lot better than before...) And it came to me. Travel. I needed to just up and go somewhere for a weekend. Las Vegas. New Orleans. Seattle. Just on a whim.
Then I realized that, in fact, I was not really free. I have a dog. A dog is still a responsibility, and if I was going to do this freedom thing, I was going to need to rethink the dog-ownership thing. Don't get me wrong. I love my dog. She's a hilarious, weird dog with more personality than you might actually want in a dog. But, aside from requiring daily feeding, drinking, eliminating and exercise (doesn't that simplicity sound inviting?) she also requires a fair amount of attention. She's sort of an affection hound, she doesn't like to be alone, she prefers a monogamous, committed relationship, and... well, she reminds me of me, and that's not helping this "pretend to enjoy the freedom..." thing. So, I'm thinking of trying to find her a new home.
Then there's the extreme celebration idea. I've been wanting a tattoo for years. Nothing outrageous. Just something simple, of my own design, black and ... flesh, someplace not very noticeable. Preferably, someplace invisible completely. Just something *I* know is there, like the little message on the inside of the bracelet that I wear ("It will be alright") that I can think about and be reminded of something I often forget. Just a little symbol of this new freedom that I can always touch and remember that it's mine if I want it, and giving it up is not as minor a decision as I've always treated it.
So, those are the things I've been thinking about lately. Shockingly, everyone has opinions about them (especially the tattoo), but the neat thing about celebrating freedom is that the celebration is really the recognition that these are my decisions. So, if I decide not to get rid of the dog and not to get the tattoo, it will be because *I* chose that path. Not because I'm trying to make anyone else happy.
Oh, yeah, and I asked another friend last night, male, what was so great about living alone, and OF COURSE, he responded, "you get to walk around naked and fart at will..." Whoever thinks that the "men are from mars" thing is a crock, let me just say that there's more right with it than wrong...
Yeesh.
Well, that day is here.
Today is the first day in my life that I woke up to a house that would not get any fuller in the forseeable future. I woke up to a phone call from my buddy Kirk bugging me for the composite cd that I'd promised him. Ugh. Hate waking up to phone calls. Much prefer to wake up to a warm body, even if that warm body is frustrated and cranky because it's out of work.
My mom once quoted a Yiddish proverb that has stuck with me, but which I can't remember in its exact form which I believe sounded more lyrical. Anyway, it's something like "If you pretend to be asleep, eventually, you'll be asleep." So, I'm thinking that I should pretend to enjoy my freedom so that eventually, I will.
Because right now, all I feel is alone. And it sucks.
I spent a lot of yesterday, including the drive home from seeing the barista off, trying to figure out how to celebrate a freedom that I'm not sure I really want.
(And before I go any further, I want to assure my dear readers that I'm not going to moon about, forever whining about my aloneness. I'm obviously going to get over it in a couple of days, so just shut up while I use my personal melodrama as writing fodder...)
The first celebratory thing I came up with is "TAKE BACK MY SIDE OF THE COUCH!" This was an exciting event, marked by, well, my sitting on the side of the couch I used to sit on. Not exactly what you'd call a great act of civil disobedience, and not exactly satisfying anyway, 'cos I'd found a certain comfort on the other side, but I did it. I pretended to relish it so that eventually I would enjoy the fact that I could sit on WHATEVER FUCKING SIDE OF THE COUCH I WANTED TO. Dammit. (This goes for the bed, too... Now I have the light and can read until whenever I want to... WHOOO HOOO!!! Whatever.)
Then I thought about what it was to REALLY be free. How else could I celebrate the utter lack of responsibility I now had to anyone except my job and my bills? (Yeah, I know, still a lot of responsibility, but really a lot better than before...) And it came to me. Travel. I needed to just up and go somewhere for a weekend. Las Vegas. New Orleans. Seattle. Just on a whim.
Then I realized that, in fact, I was not really free. I have a dog. A dog is still a responsibility, and if I was going to do this freedom thing, I was going to need to rethink the dog-ownership thing. Don't get me wrong. I love my dog. She's a hilarious, weird dog with more personality than you might actually want in a dog. But, aside from requiring daily feeding, drinking, eliminating and exercise (doesn't that simplicity sound inviting?) she also requires a fair amount of attention. She's sort of an affection hound, she doesn't like to be alone, she prefers a monogamous, committed relationship, and... well, she reminds me of me, and that's not helping this "pretend to enjoy the freedom..." thing. So, I'm thinking of trying to find her a new home.
Then there's the extreme celebration idea. I've been wanting a tattoo for years. Nothing outrageous. Just something simple, of my own design, black and ... flesh, someplace not very noticeable. Preferably, someplace invisible completely. Just something *I* know is there, like the little message on the inside of the bracelet that I wear ("It will be alright") that I can think about and be reminded of something I often forget. Just a little symbol of this new freedom that I can always touch and remember that it's mine if I want it, and giving it up is not as minor a decision as I've always treated it.
So, those are the things I've been thinking about lately. Shockingly, everyone has opinions about them (especially the tattoo), but the neat thing about celebrating freedom is that the celebration is really the recognition that these are my decisions. So, if I decide not to get rid of the dog and not to get the tattoo, it will be because *I* chose that path. Not because I'm trying to make anyone else happy.
Oh, yeah, and I asked another friend last night, male, what was so great about living alone, and OF COURSE, he responded, "you get to walk around naked and fart at will..." Whoever thinks that the "men are from mars" thing is a crock, let me just say that there's more right with it than wrong...
Yeesh.
magic 8-ball
I'm not sure where in my personal aether-theology that my magic 8-ball fits, but I'm going to have to work it out, because I believe in my magic 8-ball. Deeply.
Not only that, but it gets me jobs. Granted, I've just recently blogged about how some of these jobs I've gotten cause me great deals of anxiety and perhaps aren't the best basis for belief, but it's still gotten me jobs. In different ways.
My two most recent jobs both required me to submit writing samples. The first, HCFH (Horrible Company From Hell), required me to create an ad including copy for a product of my choosing. I looked around my office, eyed the black magic orb, and decided to write an ad for that. They loved it. I was so clever.
The job I'm at now required a sample of my technical writing skills, so I had to write a process for using a product, again of my choosing. So, I recycled my inspiration. The following is what I submitted, and I submit it to you as an explanation of my deep belief in the magic 8-ball...
_______________________
Introduction
The Magic 8-Ball® is a complex piece of decision-making equipment. Using the Magic 8-Ball® takes coordination and intense concentration, while interpreting the results takes experience and manipulative optimism. We will guide you through the learning process step by step, and in no time you will be making executive level decisions effortlessly.
For those not familiar with the design of the Magic 8-Ball®, we introduce its components.
In order to get the best results from the Magic 8-Ball® decision-making tool, you should carefully read and follow the steps below.
1. Grasp the Magic 8-Ball® firmly in your hand with the window facing up, as shown below.
2. In a smooth motion, turn the Magic 8-Ball® upside down. By turning it completely upside down, you position the icosahedron in the maximum depth of the surrounding liquid, allowing the greatest freedom of movement.
Note: Shaking the Magic 8-Ball® is not needed, and in fact is detrimental to maximal performance. Shaking the ball often results in bubbles that obscure the answer.
3. Formulate your query as a “yes” or “no” question.
Example: “Will we make our scheduled release date for our latest piece of software?
4. Speak aloud or think your question to the Magic 8-Ball®. Concentration is very important.
5. Again, in a smooth motion, turn the Magic 8-Ball® right side up so that the window is showing again.
6. Wait until the icosahedron settles, and read your answer.
Interpreting Your Results
While the manipulation of the Magic 8-Ball® takes skill and concentration, interpreting your results takes more experience, and a little creativity.
Results listing
The table below lists the 20 possible results returned by the Magic 8-Ball®. You can see that fully 50% of the answers are positive, while 30% are negative, and 20% are undecided.
Positive
If you’re hoping for a positive response, you can take any undecided response and ask again. Your chance of getting a negative response is only 3 in 10. Additionally, many negative results are open to interpretation. After a “Very doubtful,” for instance, you can follow up with “But could you be wrong?” or, “But it’s possible, right?” Another turn of the Magic 8-Ball® gives you another 70% chance of getting the answer you want.
Note: When you rephrase your question, keep in mind that a positive result is more likely.
Good luck with your new purchase. Enjoy the thrill of positive decision-making.
_______________________
You can see why I believe in it.
Not only that, but it gets me jobs. Granted, I've just recently blogged about how some of these jobs I've gotten cause me great deals of anxiety and perhaps aren't the best basis for belief, but it's still gotten me jobs. In different ways.
My two most recent jobs both required me to submit writing samples. The first, HCFH (Horrible Company From Hell), required me to create an ad including copy for a product of my choosing. I looked around my office, eyed the black magic orb, and decided to write an ad for that. They loved it. I was so clever.
The job I'm at now required a sample of my technical writing skills, so I had to write a process for using a product, again of my choosing. So, I recycled my inspiration. The following is what I submitted, and I submit it to you as an explanation of my deep belief in the magic 8-ball...
_______________________
Introduction
The Magic 8-Ball® is a complex piece of decision-making equipment. Using the Magic 8-Ball® takes coordination and intense concentration, while interpreting the results takes experience and manipulative optimism. We will guide you through the learning process step by step, and in no time you will be making executive level decisions effortlessly.
For those not familiar with the design of the Magic 8-Ball®, we introduce its components.
- Spherical outer shell with representation of the portentous 8-ball from the game of pool
- Internal icosahedron with mystical answers on each of its 20 sides (complete list documented below)
- Blue liquid inside the ball, creating a free-floating environment for outside forces to impose their will on the icosahedron
In order to get the best results from the Magic 8-Ball® decision-making tool, you should carefully read and follow the steps below.
1. Grasp the Magic 8-Ball® firmly in your hand with the window facing up, as shown below.
2. In a smooth motion, turn the Magic 8-Ball® upside down. By turning it completely upside down, you position the icosahedron in the maximum depth of the surrounding liquid, allowing the greatest freedom of movement.
Note: Shaking the Magic 8-Ball® is not needed, and in fact is detrimental to maximal performance. Shaking the ball often results in bubbles that obscure the answer.
3. Formulate your query as a “yes” or “no” question.
Example: “Will we make our scheduled release date for our latest piece of software?
4. Speak aloud or think your question to the Magic 8-Ball®. Concentration is very important.
5. Again, in a smooth motion, turn the Magic 8-Ball® right side up so that the window is showing again.
6. Wait until the icosahedron settles, and read your answer.
Interpreting Your Results
While the manipulation of the Magic 8-Ball® takes skill and concentration, interpreting your results takes more experience, and a little creativity.
Results listing
The table below lists the 20 possible results returned by the Magic 8-Ball®. You can see that fully 50% of the answers are positive, while 30% are negative, and 20% are undecided.
Positive
- Without a doubt
- Yes
- It is decidedly so
- Yes definitely
- As I see it yes
- You may rely on it
- It is certain
- Outlook good
- Signs point to yes
- Most likely
- Very doubtful
- Outlook not so good
- No
- My sources say no
- My reply is no
- Don’t count on it
- Ask again later
- Cannot predict now
- Concentrate and ask again
- Better not tell you now
If you’re hoping for a positive response, you can take any undecided response and ask again. Your chance of getting a negative response is only 3 in 10. Additionally, many negative results are open to interpretation. After a “Very doubtful,” for instance, you can follow up with “But could you be wrong?” or, “But it’s possible, right?” Another turn of the Magic 8-Ball® gives you another 70% chance of getting the answer you want.
Note: When you rephrase your question, keep in mind that a positive result is more likely.
Good luck with your new purchase. Enjoy the thrill of positive decision-making.
_______________________
You can see why I believe in it.
Monday, August 30, 2004
found poetry
"The multitudes were packed as dense as broccoli florets..."
It doesn't *really* count as found poetry, like that bizarre shopping list I once found on a discarded napkin, but it was stuck in the middle of a New York Times article, and therefore, since it was obviously lost, I now consider it found...
Ok, so it's almost Bulwer-Litton-y, but in the New York Times? You have to love it...
It doesn't *really* count as found poetry, like that bizarre shopping list I once found on a discarded napkin, but it was stuck in the middle of a New York Times article, and therefore, since it was obviously lost, I now consider it found...
Ok, so it's almost Bulwer-Litton-y, but in the New York Times? You have to love it...
vicarious thrills
Every time we go to Central Market for lunch, my friend and I see the same woman. She's tall, thin, African American (in the sense that she doesn't seem like she's been in the states very long) and she has *totally* gotten the hang of how to eat in the US.
Every day, as my friend and I share a sandwich (they're huge) and drink our unsweetened iced tea, this woman sits down and decorously eats a pint of Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk.
The whole pint.
It's really a joy to watch...
Every day, as my friend and I share a sandwich (they're huge) and drink our unsweetened iced tea, this woman sits down and decorously eats a pint of Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk.
The whole pint.
It's really a joy to watch...
Sunday, August 29, 2004
doing well
“He’s doing good.”
There are some rules of grammar that I can forgive when they’re spoken, but hearing this come out of the mouth of my son’s second grade teacher was more painful than a date with an Epilady. On the plus side, by the age of 7, my son had developed his own impatience with the public school system, took control of the situation, rolled his eyes and muttered, “Well.”
I would not have been as gentle.
I admit, that who you are has a great deal to do with how pissed off you will make me with your grammatical or vocabulary ignorance. Joey from Friends is almost charming having brought “supposeably” into pop-cultural English, but when the CEO of a major corporation uses the similar “undoubtably” at a press conference it makes me take a second look at my financial portfolio. And, there is little doubt in my mind that the rest of the world misunderestimates our fine country when our leaders fabricate words like “securitize” or “hypothecate” in public. (It should be noted that “nucular” in a Georgian accent is, for some reason, less offensive than in a Texan accent.)
I had a friend in college who we teased for his use of “acrosst” and “anyways.” He was cute, was from upstate New York and had only one eyebrow (“I used to have two, but I shaved the top one off”) so we forgave him. However, had he ever muttered “irregardless,” I, for one, would have beaten him over the head with a Webster’s unabridged.
If you’re interested in keeping me from flinging hash browns at you at the breakfast table, there are a couple of simple rules of English that you can follow. First, never, ever assume that there is any consistency in the language. Just because there’s a “width” and a “depth”, let me assure you that there is no “ttthhh” on the end of “height,” and if I hear one, I’ll pull the fricative right through your teeth. “Heighth.” Bah.
Second, don’t listen to teenagers. Sure, kids are our future, language is dynamic, bla bla bla, but it sure would be nice, like, if, like, in the future, like, sentences didn’t, like, sound like some, like, happy, perky person with, like, happy, perky Tourette’s syndrome. Like. And when describing a conversation, just eliminate EVERYTHING that sounds like “and so he goes, ‘like, I don’t want to,’ and then she went, ‘like, that’s too bad.’” Trust me, you sound like a moron. Like.
Third, don’t try to sound like William F. Buckley, either. “I” is a subject; the object is all about “me.” Just like that. I promise you, it’s OKAY to use the word “me.” Using the word “I” saves you only one letter, no syllables, and it’s just plain wrong when you use it at the end of “just between you and…” And, only use “I feel badly” if you’ve been having some trouble identifying your child from your toaster oven by touch. If you’ve got the guilts, trust me, you feel bad. Apologize. Sometimes it helps.
Finally, you don’t have to have taken Latin in 7th grade to be able to pick out the roots of words. You can probably figure out what a lot of words mean by breaking them down into simpler parts. I’m talking to the good people at Oracle when I say this. Go look at your web page, folks. The part where you describe the classes you offer? You know, where you break down the preREQUIsites into “REQUIred” and “suggested”?
That brings me to the other face of “bad English” that pisses me off. What is the deal with business people? Are they in collusion to form their own corporate Esperanto? Some global language that comes with the global marketplace? That bizarre business lingo that is so ubiquitous it has resulted in the creation of the globally recognized game, Buzzword Bingo? HR folks! Do me a favor, and just orient your new people on their first day in the office, ok? If you want to have a little fun, put a blindfold on them, spin them around and disorient them. But, for pete’s sake, don’t “orientate” them. That sounds like something you do to meat before you put it on the grill.
I do a lot of corporate business writing myself. I’ve had to do the marketing fight for several years now. Oh, sure, I could just play along and use “disincent” as a verb in a sentence as if it were an actual word, or as if the language would benefit from it becoming an actual word, but I don’t. In fact, I’ve taken it as my purpose to become Champion for the Real Word. Spokesman for Truth, Justice and the American Noun.
I build or create. I do not architect.
I motivate. I do not incent.
I show how a business grows, not how I grow a business.
I bring everyone to the same level. I do NOT – never, ever, ever – level set them.
I refuse to make every verb I type a bullet-point action verb as if I first learned how to write in a resume building class.
I sometimes talk about the cutting edge, the leading edge, and the bleeding edge because those terms are able to segue nicely into non-corporate sounding metaphors that I pepper throughout my writing. However, value chain, value proposition and core competency are all expressions that I invest a lot of time finding more illustrative replacements.
I do find myself having to partner with other service providers but it is against my will. I occasionally have no choice but to create Centers of Excellence and touch on Thought Leadership, but only because the concepts are so nearly vacuous that I could hardly be bothered coming up with better terms.
Finally, I concede the use of leverage as a verb, BUT ONLY because I know I can describe the physics behind the concept and point out that where you place the fulcrum is far more important to business efficiency than the amount of brute force applied at the pushing end.
So, you see, I do my part. It’s up to you to do yours, or you may find yourself repurposed, utilizing your skill set in a customer-focused manner that highlights your core competencies and allows you to work smarter, not harder as you take ownership of someone else’s bottom line.
Then you’ll really be “doing good.”
(sorry guys, this one is recycled, but it was begging to get out into the light of day again...)
There are some rules of grammar that I can forgive when they’re spoken, but hearing this come out of the mouth of my son’s second grade teacher was more painful than a date with an Epilady. On the plus side, by the age of 7, my son had developed his own impatience with the public school system, took control of the situation, rolled his eyes and muttered, “Well.”
I would not have been as gentle.
I admit, that who you are has a great deal to do with how pissed off you will make me with your grammatical or vocabulary ignorance. Joey from Friends is almost charming having brought “supposeably” into pop-cultural English, but when the CEO of a major corporation uses the similar “undoubtably” at a press conference it makes me take a second look at my financial portfolio. And, there is little doubt in my mind that the rest of the world misunderestimates our fine country when our leaders fabricate words like “securitize” or “hypothecate” in public. (It should be noted that “nucular” in a Georgian accent is, for some reason, less offensive than in a Texan accent.)
I had a friend in college who we teased for his use of “acrosst” and “anyways.” He was cute, was from upstate New York and had only one eyebrow (“I used to have two, but I shaved the top one off”) so we forgave him. However, had he ever muttered “irregardless,” I, for one, would have beaten him over the head with a Webster’s unabridged.
If you’re interested in keeping me from flinging hash browns at you at the breakfast table, there are a couple of simple rules of English that you can follow. First, never, ever assume that there is any consistency in the language. Just because there’s a “width” and a “depth”, let me assure you that there is no “ttthhh” on the end of “height,” and if I hear one, I’ll pull the fricative right through your teeth. “Heighth.” Bah.
Second, don’t listen to teenagers. Sure, kids are our future, language is dynamic, bla bla bla, but it sure would be nice, like, if, like, in the future, like, sentences didn’t, like, sound like some, like, happy, perky person with, like, happy, perky Tourette’s syndrome. Like. And when describing a conversation, just eliminate EVERYTHING that sounds like “and so he goes, ‘like, I don’t want to,’ and then she went, ‘like, that’s too bad.’” Trust me, you sound like a moron. Like.
Third, don’t try to sound like William F. Buckley, either. “I” is a subject; the object is all about “me.” Just like that. I promise you, it’s OKAY to use the word “me.” Using the word “I” saves you only one letter, no syllables, and it’s just plain wrong when you use it at the end of “just between you and…” And, only use “I feel badly” if you’ve been having some trouble identifying your child from your toaster oven by touch. If you’ve got the guilts, trust me, you feel bad. Apologize. Sometimes it helps.
Finally, you don’t have to have taken Latin in 7th grade to be able to pick out the roots of words. You can probably figure out what a lot of words mean by breaking them down into simpler parts. I’m talking to the good people at Oracle when I say this. Go look at your web page, folks. The part where you describe the classes you offer? You know, where you break down the preREQUIsites into “REQUIred” and “suggested”?
That brings me to the other face of “bad English” that pisses me off. What is the deal with business people? Are they in collusion to form their own corporate Esperanto? Some global language that comes with the global marketplace? That bizarre business lingo that is so ubiquitous it has resulted in the creation of the globally recognized game, Buzzword Bingo? HR folks! Do me a favor, and just orient your new people on their first day in the office, ok? If you want to have a little fun, put a blindfold on them, spin them around and disorient them. But, for pete’s sake, don’t “orientate” them. That sounds like something you do to meat before you put it on the grill.
I do a lot of corporate business writing myself. I’ve had to do the marketing fight for several years now. Oh, sure, I could just play along and use “disincent” as a verb in a sentence as if it were an actual word, or as if the language would benefit from it becoming an actual word, but I don’t. In fact, I’ve taken it as my purpose to become Champion for the Real Word. Spokesman for Truth, Justice and the American Noun.
I build or create. I do not architect.
I motivate. I do not incent.
I show how a business grows, not how I grow a business.
I bring everyone to the same level. I do NOT – never, ever, ever – level set them.
I refuse to make every verb I type a bullet-point action verb as if I first learned how to write in a resume building class.
I sometimes talk about the cutting edge, the leading edge, and the bleeding edge because those terms are able to segue nicely into non-corporate sounding metaphors that I pepper throughout my writing. However, value chain, value proposition and core competency are all expressions that I invest a lot of time finding more illustrative replacements.
I do find myself having to partner with other service providers but it is against my will. I occasionally have no choice but to create Centers of Excellence and touch on Thought Leadership, but only because the concepts are so nearly vacuous that I could hardly be bothered coming up with better terms.
Finally, I concede the use of leverage as a verb, BUT ONLY because I know I can describe the physics behind the concept and point out that where you place the fulcrum is far more important to business efficiency than the amount of brute force applied at the pushing end.
So, you see, I do my part. It’s up to you to do yours, or you may find yourself repurposed, utilizing your skill set in a customer-focused manner that highlights your core competencies and allows you to work smarter, not harder as you take ownership of someone else’s bottom line.
Then you’ll really be “doing good.”
(sorry guys, this one is recycled, but it was begging to get out into the light of day again...)
Saturday, August 28, 2004
pieces of string
I have two books on reducing clutter.
Two.
I'm not sure if I need to describe the irony of that, but let's just say that I could seriously use some help implementing the ideas of either of them.
It's not that I'm a packrat. Well, ok, I'm a packrat. But I *have* had some experience in getting rid of things, and it's not emotional attachment that keeps me from throwing things out. It's really just inertia. Not even *my* inertia. I have a lot of crap. It's pretty inert.
I have had two garage sales in the last year. I have donated $1000s of dollars of furniture, old clothing, jewelry, books, videos, linens, and kitchenware. When the books on clutter didn't work, I bought books on Feng Shui, thinking that the simplicity of asian spaces in general was what I was aiming for. You know, a single bamboo plant in the middle of the table, a display dish with some rocks in it, a candle...
After 6 weeks of decluttering (all part of the Feng Shui way) I got one table in my house to look like that, and, not surprisingly, several months later, next to the bowl of rocks is a box of old photos, a half dozen candles that migrated from the top of the air conditioner because they made vibraty noises when it was on, three rolls of film, and a stack of blank videos that I use to tape Monk for a friend of mine who doesn't have cable.
I have paper coming out of my... ears. My ears, my nose, my desk drawers, cigar boxes, wicker baskets, falling off tables, stacked on the TV, slotted next to the toaster oven, and on the floor under the mail slot. I have things... just things... like hand weights, and power tools, and electrical wiring, and scissors (I have like 8 pairs of scissors lying around my house... I don't know why....) with no place to put them.
I want to get rid of it ALL. (Well, maybe I could keep one or two pairs of scissors. One for paper, one for cloth... You know...)
I have lots of photos, and I like photos, so I'm going to keep them regardless, but I have ceramic ducks, and shaped candles, and bowls of pot pourri that have accumulated seven years of dust because I could care less about pot pourri, but I like the bowls and I have no idea what else I could put in them. Well, rocks, I suppose. I have a basket of remote controls, most of which I don't use, or belong to equipment I no longer have. I have books, and books, and books, and books, and like my photos, I have no intention of getting rid of them, but I sure would like to have them stored in a sustainable way.
I have fantasies of my house burning down. I mean, not really, but it sure would be convenient because I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS BY MYSELF!!! I want to hire someone to declutter my house. I know these people exist. I'm willing to pay. I swear.
Someone, please, help me! I have magazines that I throw away, but, I don't know, it's like they come in the mail or something, and as soon as I throw them away, they come back. CATALOGS!! BILLS!! MAKE THEM GO AWAY!!!
Yes yes yes, I know, "only touch it once!" meaning, pick up a piece of paper and immediately do what needs to be done with it. Pay the bill, file the insurance thing, throw the catalog out. I try, honest I do. I'll make it for a week, but then I forget for a day, and another day, and then I've got piles again.
Ew, no, not like that.
Well, yeah, actually, they're a major pain in my...
The point where, among my relics, I have a cigar box labelled, and I'm not making this up, "pieces of string too small to use."
Someone please help me before it's too late...
Two.
I'm not sure if I need to describe the irony of that, but let's just say that I could seriously use some help implementing the ideas of either of them.
It's not that I'm a packrat. Well, ok, I'm a packrat. But I *have* had some experience in getting rid of things, and it's not emotional attachment that keeps me from throwing things out. It's really just inertia. Not even *my* inertia. I have a lot of crap. It's pretty inert.
I have had two garage sales in the last year. I have donated $1000s of dollars of furniture, old clothing, jewelry, books, videos, linens, and kitchenware. When the books on clutter didn't work, I bought books on Feng Shui, thinking that the simplicity of asian spaces in general was what I was aiming for. You know, a single bamboo plant in the middle of the table, a display dish with some rocks in it, a candle...
After 6 weeks of decluttering (all part of the Feng Shui way) I got one table in my house to look like that, and, not surprisingly, several months later, next to the bowl of rocks is a box of old photos, a half dozen candles that migrated from the top of the air conditioner because they made vibraty noises when it was on, three rolls of film, and a stack of blank videos that I use to tape Monk for a friend of mine who doesn't have cable.
I have paper coming out of my... ears. My ears, my nose, my desk drawers, cigar boxes, wicker baskets, falling off tables, stacked on the TV, slotted next to the toaster oven, and on the floor under the mail slot. I have things... just things... like hand weights, and power tools, and electrical wiring, and scissors (I have like 8 pairs of scissors lying around my house... I don't know why....) with no place to put them.
I want to get rid of it ALL. (Well, maybe I could keep one or two pairs of scissors. One for paper, one for cloth... You know...)
I have lots of photos, and I like photos, so I'm going to keep them regardless, but I have ceramic ducks, and shaped candles, and bowls of pot pourri that have accumulated seven years of dust because I could care less about pot pourri, but I like the bowls and I have no idea what else I could put in them. Well, rocks, I suppose. I have a basket of remote controls, most of which I don't use, or belong to equipment I no longer have. I have books, and books, and books, and books, and like my photos, I have no intention of getting rid of them, but I sure would like to have them stored in a sustainable way.
I have fantasies of my house burning down. I mean, not really, but it sure would be convenient because I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS BY MYSELF!!! I want to hire someone to declutter my house. I know these people exist. I'm willing to pay. I swear.
Someone, please, help me! I have magazines that I throw away, but, I don't know, it's like they come in the mail or something, and as soon as I throw them away, they come back. CATALOGS!! BILLS!! MAKE THEM GO AWAY!!!
Yes yes yes, I know, "only touch it once!" meaning, pick up a piece of paper and immediately do what needs to be done with it. Pay the bill, file the insurance thing, throw the catalog out. I try, honest I do. I'll make it for a week, but then I forget for a day, and another day, and then I've got piles again.
Ew, no, not like that.
Well, yeah, actually, they're a major pain in my...
Anyway...
cookbooks. boxes. business stuff. incense burners (incense burners?). dog treats. dog hair. It's all gotta go.
My only hope is that because my house is on the market, I will, one day, have to pack and move. My only fear is that when the day comes to pack, I will get so panicked that I will just throw the garbage in a box and transport the junk from one habitat to another, and when I unpack, I will, like a gerbil, tear it into bits, fluff it up, scatter it throughout my cage, and call it my nest.
I really need to feel like I'm not doomed. Like I'm not going to end up an old maid in a house with old newspapers stacked like walls forming pathways from the front door to the back door. Where the candles have melted into place, and the pot pourri looks like it was raked in last October. Where coffee mugs have been hidden under the magazines for so many years that they're supporting their own microbiocultures.
The point where, among my relics, I have a cigar box labelled, and I'm not making this up, "pieces of string too small to use."
Someone please help me before it's too late...
Thursday, August 26, 2004
language and thinking and writing and speaking
There is something wrong with my speech center, I'm sure. Whether it's the ADD or some other neurological dysfunction, I lose track of what I'm saying, or forget the word I'm supposed to use, right in the middle of a sentence. It's one of the reasons I prefer to express myself in writing. A) I have time to edit before anyone gets to see it, and b) I don't lock up quite so much.
In any case, my lack of ability to finish a sentence sometimes drives my friends crazy. Actually, it just sometimes drives my boyfriend crazy. Most of my friends know me well enough to just know where I'm headed and finish the sentence in their heads for me, which is a great time saver, but my boyfriend just sits there and waits and looks at me like I should be put away, either deliberately not following me, and wanting me to work for it, like I'm just being lazy, or unintentionally missing the rest of my communication efforts that are not currently involving my vocal cords. Sometimes I think it's because he's in a cranky mood and wants to make me cranky with him that he does it. Sometimes I think that he just doesn't read my mind like other people do. I think I depend on that a lot for communication...
(Oh. I need to note that it's entirely possible that my other friends may be just as irritated by my lack of sentence finishing, but they're too polite to say anything... I tend to think of it as a charming eccentricity, but I'm biased...)
I mean, verbal language is just one very specific tool that we use to communicate, and unfortunately for me, my brain sometimes loses pieces of it in much the same way that my socket wrench set is scattered throughout my garage. I can be trying to say something very important, and get stuck, and have to say, "...you know... Noun. Something. You know. Anyway..." and then I stare into space for a few seconds before I am brave enough to go on to the next sentence, hoping my audience has just simply followed me blindly assuming all will be revealed by the end of the verbal paragraph.
Language is just not a tool my mouth is very good with. [ed. note: I realize that this is a huge opening for many of my friends/readers... keep it to yourselves...]
My fingers, on the other hand, have a much better grip on it. At a keyboard, I don't forget words, and if I do, it's just part of the equation to hit a few buttons and end up at an online thesaurus, and jog my memory quickly and efficiently and barely lose a beat. At a keyboard, I can keep whole thoughts in my head after thinking them and while expressing them. I can continue typing about one thing while my head is off making connections to something else completely. It's like my visual brain is allowed to function independently when I'm communicating with my hands, but when I'm talking, it has to timeshare.
It's a drag.
And you know, now that I'm thinking about it, I think I have the same problem with language input. I read visual clues, and body language, pick up on incidental data, and to me, that forms a broader picture of a conversation. Can I quote people? Hell no. I can't remember specifically what someone said to me 5 seconds ago. But I can probably tell you what they were feeling in a general way, and give you a decent paraphrase of conversations I've had years ago.
Writing is just different for me. I think when I write. Actually, what I mean is that I think *better* when I write. By the end of this post, I will have a much clearer understanding of the specific point I really wanted to make in the first place, and I will go back and edit the whole of the contents to make it seem like it clearly and efficiently led up to that point.
I can't do that with verbal language. My arguments are not preformed, just sitting there in the verbal part of my cortex, just waiting for an opening. My thoughts are pieced together word by word, pretty much as they're coming out of my mouth. It's actually not quite *that* bad. I have some editing capability. But my verbal buffer only holds about 128 characters. I'd need a conversational buffer of about a gig to, say, bring a morale problem to my boss. I'd need a terabyte buffer to have an argument on the phone with my ex-husband. (He can out-talk me, but I can out-write him, so on a multi-media playing field, we're evenly matched. Luckily, we don't argue all that often anymore, 'cos it's tiring...)
So, instead, I opt to write. I write, I think, I edit, I rewrite and then, eventually, I communicate.
Meanwhile, I still have to have conversations with my boyfriend, and when that happens
In any case, my lack of ability to finish a sentence sometimes drives my friends crazy. Actually, it just sometimes drives my boyfriend crazy. Most of my friends know me well enough to just know where I'm headed and finish the sentence in their heads for me, which is a great time saver, but my boyfriend just sits there and waits and looks at me like I should be put away, either deliberately not following me, and wanting me to work for it, like I'm just being lazy, or unintentionally missing the rest of my communication efforts that are not currently involving my vocal cords. Sometimes I think it's because he's in a cranky mood and wants to make me cranky with him that he does it. Sometimes I think that he just doesn't read my mind like other people do. I think I depend on that a lot for communication...
(Oh. I need to note that it's entirely possible that my other friends may be just as irritated by my lack of sentence finishing, but they're too polite to say anything... I tend to think of it as a charming eccentricity, but I'm biased...)
I mean, verbal language is just one very specific tool that we use to communicate, and unfortunately for me, my brain sometimes loses pieces of it in much the same way that my socket wrench set is scattered throughout my garage. I can be trying to say something very important, and get stuck, and have to say, "...you know... Noun. Something. You know. Anyway..." and then I stare into space for a few seconds before I am brave enough to go on to the next sentence, hoping my audience has just simply followed me blindly assuming all will be revealed by the end of the verbal paragraph.
Language is just not a tool my mouth is very good with. [ed. note: I realize that this is a huge opening for many of my friends/readers... keep it to yourselves...]
My fingers, on the other hand, have a much better grip on it. At a keyboard, I don't forget words, and if I do, it's just part of the equation to hit a few buttons and end up at an online thesaurus, and jog my memory quickly and efficiently and barely lose a beat. At a keyboard, I can keep whole thoughts in my head after thinking them and while expressing them. I can continue typing about one thing while my head is off making connections to something else completely. It's like my visual brain is allowed to function independently when I'm communicating with my hands, but when I'm talking, it has to timeshare.
It's a drag.
And you know, now that I'm thinking about it, I think I have the same problem with language input. I read visual clues, and body language, pick up on incidental data, and to me, that forms a broader picture of a conversation. Can I quote people? Hell no. I can't remember specifically what someone said to me 5 seconds ago. But I can probably tell you what they were feeling in a general way, and give you a decent paraphrase of conversations I've had years ago.
Writing is just different for me. I think when I write. Actually, what I mean is that I think *better* when I write. By the end of this post, I will have a much clearer understanding of the specific point I really wanted to make in the first place, and I will go back and edit the whole of the contents to make it seem like it clearly and efficiently led up to that point.
I can't do that with verbal language. My arguments are not preformed, just sitting there in the verbal part of my cortex, just waiting for an opening. My thoughts are pieced together word by word, pretty much as they're coming out of my mouth. It's actually not quite *that* bad. I have some editing capability. But my verbal buffer only holds about 128 characters. I'd need a conversational buffer of about a gig to, say, bring a morale problem to my boss. I'd need a terabyte buffer to have an argument on the phone with my ex-husband. (He can out-talk me, but I can out-write him, so on a multi-media playing field, we're evenly matched. Luckily, we don't argue all that often anymore, 'cos it's tiring...)
So, instead, I opt to write. I write, I think, I edit, I rewrite and then, eventually, I communicate.
Meanwhile, I still have to have conversations with my boyfriend, and when that happens
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
late bloomer
I was 30 years old when I stopped going to school. That same week my son *started* school, so until this year, when my son moved in with his dad, I've been dealing with teachers for 36 years straight.
Don't tell me that doesn't just suck.
But, that's not what I was going to write about. Dealing with teachers and administrators for the modern urban school is worthy of it's own entry, and once the willies wear off, I'll put the strap of leather between my teeth and start to recall my own adventures with the people who say things like "62% of our school is gifted and talented"... * s h u d d e r *
What I was going to write about was that apparently I'm a late bloomer. Not only did I save my "real world" virginity until I was 30, in a week or so, when my barista moves out to take a job in a different city, I will be living on my own, for the first time... EVER.
Remember. I'm almost 40. I've never lived alone. EVER.
I immediately panicked, thinking, "oh, shit, all I'm going to do is eat Macaroni and Cheese (Kraft - it's the cheesiest) and watch Law & Order reruns..." Then I thought, "oh, shit, I'm going to be one of those people who buys all their food from the "prepared food" section at Whole Foods." Then, "oh, shit, how am I ever going to remember which day is recycling day?!?"
It took about 24 hours, but now I'm thinkin'... WHOO HOO!!! I get to eat Macaroni and Cheese and watch Law & Order reruns whenever the fuck I want to!!! WHOO HOOO!!!!!
Ok, I'm really not that excited about it, but I *am* trying not to be depressed and freaked out.
See, I don't like being alone. It's not that I dislike my own company, or I need someone else around to keep me company. I just know what some of my bad habits are, and being alone is just going to exacerbate them.
Don't tell me that doesn't just suck.
But, that's not what I was going to write about. Dealing with teachers and administrators for the modern urban school is worthy of it's own entry, and once the willies wear off, I'll put the strap of leather between my teeth and start to recall my own adventures with the people who say things like "62% of our school is gifted and talented"... * s h u d d e r *
What I was going to write about was that apparently I'm a late bloomer. Not only did I save my "real world" virginity until I was 30, in a week or so, when my barista moves out to take a job in a different city, I will be living on my own, for the first time... EVER.
Remember. I'm almost 40. I've never lived alone. EVER.
I immediately panicked, thinking, "oh, shit, all I'm going to do is eat Macaroni and Cheese (Kraft - it's the cheesiest) and watch Law & Order reruns..." Then I thought, "oh, shit, I'm going to be one of those people who buys all their food from the "prepared food" section at Whole Foods." Then, "oh, shit, how am I ever going to remember which day is recycling day?!?"
It took about 24 hours, but now I'm thinkin'... WHOO HOO!!! I get to eat Macaroni and Cheese and watch Law & Order reruns whenever the fuck I want to!!! WHOO HOOO!!!!!
Ok, I'm really not that excited about it, but I *am* trying not to be depressed and freaked out.
See, I don't like being alone. It's not that I dislike my own company, or I need someone else around to keep me company. I just know what some of my bad habits are, and being alone is just going to exacerbate them.
- I will get addicted to several computer games and play them until all hours of the night.
- On my "work from home" day, I will not leave my bed (because my cable reaches up the stairs) and probably not even shower.
- I will never put away my laundry. It will go from the clean pile to the hamper.
- I will start to talk to the dog. On the plus side, she'll be a happier dog.
- I will seriously eat M&C a lot.
- I will probably only leave my house when necessary.
- I will probably never turn the tv off.
- If I had cats again, I would probably be "that crazy lady with the cats and the loud tv."
I like having someone to live with. I think at this point it my life it would have to be someone I'm also sleeping with, or gave birth to, but I'm a pack animal. I like the company. I like having someone to push me out of my ruts. I like having someone I can wrap my arms around when I wake up from a bad dream... I like having someone to keep me vaguely socialized.
It's really sort of bumming me out.
On the other hand, apparently it's shocking to everyone I know that I've never gone through this rite of passage, and they've all told me that it's going to be good for me. "You'll get to walk around naked! Watch what you want! Fart at will!"
(I promise you that if I asked 100 men and 100 women what was great about living alone, only men would mention the farting thing. And I bet it would be more than one...)
My problem is that I know a lot of people who've gotten used to living alone, and all I can say to that is, "Crap. I don't want to end up like that." Rigid, crotchety, cranky... Shit. I'm already enough like that, I don't need to be annealed. I'd like to think that the living alone thing is not a permanent thing. That one day I'll be back to living with someone. I like the idea of waking up with someone who you'd kiss even before they brushed their teeth. This does not, by definition, include my dog.
But, it's not like I have a lot of choice in the matter. My son is in New Mexico. My boyfriend is soon to be in San Antonio.
So, there it is. I'm almost 40, and I'm about to live alone. Who knows. I'll probably cave and get a housemate eventually. $5 says it'll be a teacher...
the songs i'll never write
If any of you out there are songwriters, here are the songs that I would love to write, but probably never will, so feel free to write them for me.
1) Don't Look Down - You know how the Coyote always runs off the edge of the cliff, but he never falls until he looks down? It's about that. Except bigger and more metaphorical. Work with it.
2) Walkin' Away - This would be a country western song, dedicated to most of the men who've entered my life briefly. The chorus would be something like, "Some men are breast men, and some men like legs, but you must be an ass man because you only want me when I'm walkin' away..."
Makes you all teary, doesn't it?
1) Don't Look Down - You know how the Coyote always runs off the edge of the cliff, but he never falls until he looks down? It's about that. Except bigger and more metaphorical. Work with it.
2) Walkin' Away - This would be a country western song, dedicated to most of the men who've entered my life briefly. The chorus would be something like, "Some men are breast men, and some men like legs, but you must be an ass man because you only want me when I'm walkin' away..."
Makes you all teary, doesn't it?
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
my kingdom for a door
I dunno. Maybe I'm a big wuss. Maybe I suffer more from anxiety than I realized and I just need to up the dosage on the meds. But, I swear, this whole cube environment sucks really extra hard.
I get teased a lot about my apparent inability to be happy in a job. As much as I'm a sucker for a confidently spoken phrase, and as much doubt as I let myself feel because of it, deep down I don't believe it's true. Yes, I'd much prefer working freelance for myself, sitting on my couch with Law & Order as white background noise, (it's noise if you've seen all the episodes 3 or 4 times...), or working from 10pm-3am when the rest of my personal, solipsistic universe is asleep, writing marketing materials for high profile companies that pay well, taking the afternoon off to go to a cheap and uncrowded movie, or hanging out catching a few afternoon trains with my buddy Kirk.
Sure, that's great, but I've been happy in real jobs before. Really.
I swear.
Honest.
Ok, I've had a total of... hang on... (mumble mumble 3 years here... mumble mumble 2 years there... mumble freelance... mumble miserable cubes mumble mumble...) 5 real jobs, and one 3 month contract position, and I was happy in at least 3 of them. There are 2 common threads among the pre-freelance happy, long-term jobs. 1) I had an actual office, and 2) I hadn't learned yet how nice it was to work for myself.
Even after deconvolving the affect of #2 from my job joy factor, I'm left believing that there's a real connection between my happiness on a job and the amount of privacy I have.
Cubes drive me crazy. Literally.
And here's why:
1) Cubes are loud.
During my three months at the Horrible Company From Hell (heretofore known as HCFH), I worked as a writer in a cubed room with 4 other writers and 4 account managers. First of all, I need to say that this was an ad/graphic design agency, king of the cutthroat industries, and home of every shallow person on the planet. Image is everything. Obey your bulimia.
So, there *were* other issues...
Every day began at 8am. After morning yoga (Ok. I exaggerate. Yoga was only a Wednesday morning thing.) the first set of discussions would be about the previous night's reality TV shows. Not really giving a shiny rat's ass about reality TV (and particularly the people who enjoy watching other people humilated) and having plenty of work to churn out in the next 10 hours, I had a hard time ignoring the inane, high volume chatter. Telling people to shut up, even nicely, was out of the question because the owner and staff manager both got deeply involved in these discussions. I was outmanned and outgunned and really really annoyed.
Account managers (almost missed the 'o' in account... how freudian...) have no sense of... well, they just have no sense. One, who I fondly nicknamed "the moron", would place speakerphone calls to writers who worked no more than 20 feet away from her. An interesting stereophonic effect, to say the least. Another, not so fondly nicknamed "the bitch", would scream and kvetch all day at the top of her lungs about her client and her projects and the fact that she was NOT chosen to be on The Bachelor, in spite of the effort the company made in producing a video audition tape for her. (No, not making that up.)
When I suggested to the staff wrangler (her business card actually reads "zookeeper") that it was a little loud, and maybe we could encourage some quietness, her suggestion was to get a boombox and keep the headphones on. Well, that would be great, but I can't work with music piped directly into my head either. Ambient, maybe. Earphones? No way.
Both other cubelands I've been in and have commented on the noise level, the suggestion has been "get a boombox and keep the headphones on." Argh.
2) Cubes foster (almost wrote 'fester'... I am very freudian today...) paranoia.
At HCFH, the girls would get together one cube over from me, and whisper. Ok, maybe they were trying to be considerate volume-wise, but given that they were not considerate people in general, I find this unlikely. To make things worse, they would occasionally look over at certain people, and continue whispering.
Whether or not they were actually talking about other people behind their backs is irrelevant. The fact that it was *possible*, and that anyone watching was aware of it, made me nervous. Were people talking about me? Why was I suddenly not getting the projects I had been getting before? What did "the bitch" say to "the moron" that caused them both to look my way and giggle?
It was like being in a Twilight Zone episode. You know. One of the ones where the video montage kept growing more and more druglike and distorted, and the main character eventually goes insane... Yeah. That one.
3) Cubes cause physical anxiety.
There's something about small motions in my peripheral vision when I'm trying to concentrate that makes it absolutely impossible to control my "fight or flight" reaction. Maybe it's just a side effect of being a fair bit ADD, or again, maybe I'm predisposed to a great amount of anxiety, but even someone just coming to sit at the desk next to me, I react. I look up. I jerk my neck around. I sometimes even jump. I need to know what the motion is in case I need to attend to it. It's like being a freakin' jet pilot in a dogfight. Aaaaa! 8 hours of tension. Every day. Ack.
Even in the high rise cubes I work in now, where I can't see anything in front of me, I still have people walking around behind me to get to other desks. In the dark spots on my computer screen, and the dark spots on the picture of my son I have on my wall I can see moving reflections. Joy to those who can turn the reaction off, but for me, JEEEZ, let me tell you that makes me edgy.
4) Cubes mean never having to close your door.
Ever have a less than wonderful day? Brink of a divorce? Child having problems at school? Finances in ruins? All three? Add a dash of PMS? mmmm....
Sobbing and sniffing within earshot of co-workers sounds like a party in a box to me, but really, it's not. "Oh, you can go to an empty office to make private phone calls if you have to..." You mean those empty offices with the big picture windows? Fab. Where to you go to just put your head on the table and cry your fucking eyeballs out? Oh, I'm sorry. That's not professional. Just leave your personal life at home.
Well, ok. I can't do that.
So, maybe it is just me. Maybe my ADD and my emotions do prevent me from thriving in a work world devoid of doors, but I tend to think that I'm not the only one.
Who knows. Maybe one day, the peasants will revolt, the cube walls will come down, and we'll all get our doors back...
I get teased a lot about my apparent inability to be happy in a job. As much as I'm a sucker for a confidently spoken phrase, and as much doubt as I let myself feel because of it, deep down I don't believe it's true. Yes, I'd much prefer working freelance for myself, sitting on my couch with Law & Order as white background noise, (it's noise if you've seen all the episodes 3 or 4 times...), or working from 10pm-3am when the rest of my personal, solipsistic universe is asleep, writing marketing materials for high profile companies that pay well, taking the afternoon off to go to a cheap and uncrowded movie, or hanging out catching a few afternoon trains with my buddy Kirk.
Sure, that's great, but I've been happy in real jobs before. Really.
I swear.
Honest.
Ok, I've had a total of... hang on... (mumble mumble 3 years here... mumble mumble 2 years there... mumble freelance... mumble miserable cubes mumble mumble...) 5 real jobs, and one 3 month contract position, and I was happy in at least 3 of them. There are 2 common threads among the pre-freelance happy, long-term jobs. 1) I had an actual office, and 2) I hadn't learned yet how nice it was to work for myself.
Even after deconvolving the affect of #2 from my job joy factor, I'm left believing that there's a real connection between my happiness on a job and the amount of privacy I have.
Cubes drive me crazy. Literally.
And here's why:
1) Cubes are loud.
During my three months at the Horrible Company From Hell (heretofore known as HCFH), I worked as a writer in a cubed room with 4 other writers and 4 account managers. First of all, I need to say that this was an ad/graphic design agency, king of the cutthroat industries, and home of every shallow person on the planet. Image is everything. Obey your bulimia.
So, there *were* other issues...
Every day began at 8am. After morning yoga (Ok. I exaggerate. Yoga was only a Wednesday morning thing.) the first set of discussions would be about the previous night's reality TV shows. Not really giving a shiny rat's ass about reality TV (and particularly the people who enjoy watching other people humilated) and having plenty of work to churn out in the next 10 hours, I had a hard time ignoring the inane, high volume chatter. Telling people to shut up, even nicely, was out of the question because the owner and staff manager both got deeply involved in these discussions. I was outmanned and outgunned and really really annoyed.
Account managers (almost missed the 'o' in account... how freudian...) have no sense of... well, they just have no sense. One, who I fondly nicknamed "the moron", would place speakerphone calls to writers who worked no more than 20 feet away from her. An interesting stereophonic effect, to say the least. Another, not so fondly nicknamed "the bitch", would scream and kvetch all day at the top of her lungs about her client and her projects and the fact that she was NOT chosen to be on The Bachelor, in spite of the effort the company made in producing a video audition tape for her. (No, not making that up.)
When I suggested to the staff wrangler (her business card actually reads "zookeeper") that it was a little loud, and maybe we could encourage some quietness, her suggestion was to get a boombox and keep the headphones on. Well, that would be great, but I can't work with music piped directly into my head either. Ambient, maybe. Earphones? No way.
Both other cubelands I've been in and have commented on the noise level, the suggestion has been "get a boombox and keep the headphones on." Argh.
2) Cubes foster (almost wrote 'fester'... I am very freudian today...) paranoia.
At HCFH, the girls would get together one cube over from me, and whisper. Ok, maybe they were trying to be considerate volume-wise, but given that they were not considerate people in general, I find this unlikely. To make things worse, they would occasionally look over at certain people, and continue whispering.
Whether or not they were actually talking about other people behind their backs is irrelevant. The fact that it was *possible*, and that anyone watching was aware of it, made me nervous. Were people talking about me? Why was I suddenly not getting the projects I had been getting before? What did "the bitch" say to "the moron" that caused them both to look my way and giggle?
It was like being in a Twilight Zone episode. You know. One of the ones where the video montage kept growing more and more druglike and distorted, and the main character eventually goes insane... Yeah. That one.
3) Cubes cause physical anxiety.
There's something about small motions in my peripheral vision when I'm trying to concentrate that makes it absolutely impossible to control my "fight or flight" reaction. Maybe it's just a side effect of being a fair bit ADD, or again, maybe I'm predisposed to a great amount of anxiety, but even someone just coming to sit at the desk next to me, I react. I look up. I jerk my neck around. I sometimes even jump. I need to know what the motion is in case I need to attend to it. It's like being a freakin' jet pilot in a dogfight. Aaaaa! 8 hours of tension. Every day. Ack.
Even in the high rise cubes I work in now, where I can't see anything in front of me, I still have people walking around behind me to get to other desks. In the dark spots on my computer screen, and the dark spots on the picture of my son I have on my wall I can see moving reflections. Joy to those who can turn the reaction off, but for me, JEEEZ, let me tell you that makes me edgy.
4) Cubes mean never having to close your door.
Ever have a less than wonderful day? Brink of a divorce? Child having problems at school? Finances in ruins? All three? Add a dash of PMS? mmmm....
Sobbing and sniffing within earshot of co-workers sounds like a party in a box to me, but really, it's not. "Oh, you can go to an empty office to make private phone calls if you have to..." You mean those empty offices with the big picture windows? Fab. Where to you go to just put your head on the table and cry your fucking eyeballs out? Oh, I'm sorry. That's not professional. Just leave your personal life at home.
Well, ok. I can't do that.
So, maybe it is just me. Maybe my ADD and my emotions do prevent me from thriving in a work world devoid of doors, but I tend to think that I'm not the only one.
Who knows. Maybe one day, the peasants will revolt, the cube walls will come down, and we'll all get our doors back...
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