People First

On my lunch break today, I found this plastic dogtag on a counter in the company cafeteria:

I know it’s a cheesy Suze Orman gimmick, but there are worse sentiments to carry around with you. I took a cell photo of it and then brought it to the building Security.

“Hi,” I said to the guard behind the desk. “Do you have a lost and found?”

He said nothing but held out his hand. I put the dogtag in it.

“I found this in the –”

“‘People first then money then things,’” read the security guard, frowning. “What’s that?”

“It’s someone’s –”

“We can keep here for twenty-four hours,” he said, “but if no one comes to claim it, it will go to the main office.” He kept reading the tag as if the catchphrase were a terrorist message in code.

“OK. I just thought someone might–”

He tossed the tag into a drawer. “That’s a really weird thing to have on a keychain.”

Technorati Tags: found objects

Happy Monday

Well, it’s Monday for me, back to work after a long weekend.

Like Dilbert, Savage Chickens know the truth: In offices across the globe, cubicles are routinely sprayed by midnight mercenaries with an invisible, odorless creativity-killing substance sold only to Inc.s and Corp.s.

This toxin seeps into the fabric on the walls, coats the chair seats, sticks to the the keyboard keys, hangs in the air like a noxious fog. Once you cross the threshold of a cube, it’s on you like white on rice. At this time, there is no known remover; it has to sort of wear off, like Superglue. (Don’t pick at it - you’ll just make it worse!)

Besides general zombification, other typical side effects include weight gain, compulsive internet surfing, and YouTube-addiction. A certain subset of cube-dwellers will also develop Buzz Tourette’s, a disorder characterized by uncontrollable regurgitation of such phrases as “think outside the box” and “moving forward” and “take it offline” and “customer centric.”

Several days into an extended period away from the cubicle, healing may begin. You may feel this substance begin to flake away, creativity slowly coming back to life…which, of course, is about when you have to go back to work.

But I’m not bitter. Moving forward…

Technorati Tags: Savage Chickens, creativity

Sound byte

I just volunteered to design and lead a workshop for my team at work on this book

What’s so funny??

Technorati Tags: emotional intelligence

Sneaking up on the muse

A writer I know of believes that muses, on the whole, tend to be shy and skittish things. Ask the muse questions about plot, characters, etc., that are too direct and she’ll freeze up, give yes/no answers, start filing her nails.

If you keep pressing, she’ll suddenly remember an urgent appointment and take off, with no guarantee that she’ll return any time soon. One has to approach one’s muse indirectly if they are going to get them to spill the beans.

“So…how about those Mariners? And do you have tickets yet to the Storm opener in May? What’s that perfume you’re wearing, it’s great! And by the way, what do you think our heroine was doing at 3 am in the graveyard with mukluks and a shovel on New Years?”

This must be why all my best ideas for my story seem to come to me during work meetings. My mind begins to wander, half in the meeting and half in the world of my imagination. The muse shows up to see what’s going on, and eventually we’re giggling behind our hands like third graders.

I got a doozy of a back-story for one of my characters from my muse today. I tried to look like I was dutifully taking meeting notes while furiously transcribing our conversation.

I hope no one at work ever actually looks at my notebook, lest they wonder exactly which business projects I’m involved in that feature murder, insanity, and assorted occult hijinx…

Technorati Tags: writing, fantasy, occult, the muse

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

And I have come to the conclusion that that’s too long to not live the way I want to live.

I wouldn’t say I’ve had an epiphany, as there’s been no single moment of revelation. More like a few recent, seemingly-disparate events culminating in a subtle but life-altering shake-down.

In August I turned 39. Which means next August, I will turn 40. Yeah, forty might be the new thirty and all that stuff, but do the math - it still means that one’s life is roughly half over. Which means goodbye to the comforting delusion that one has all the time in the world.¹

I am not afraid of “aging.” What scares me is aging desperately. I’m not there yet, but it would only be a short trip.

If you read my NaNoWriMo rant in November, you know I’ve had a troubled relationship with my writing - oh hell - with my creativity in general. My studies in Armchair Psychology lead me to conclude I’ve been unconsciously waiting for Someone’s approval.  NaNoWriMo gave me “permission” to write crap and enjoy it. The experience was bittersweet: submerging myself in imagination and creation was wonderful, but getting out of the pool left me cold and goosepimply.

Once life had the Writer in me by the short hairs, it grabbed for the Artist. I got a new job - one that not only pays me to write, but also to play around with Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I am equal parts thrilled and chagrined. I’ve wanted to learn both programs for a long time but couldn’t justify buying the expensive software “just for me.” ²

Another dip in the water - it’s bracing this time of year.

Of course, just as my metaphorical heart begins to beat again, my flesh and blood one starts giving me trouble.

There’s a chance my congenital valve problem may be coming back to haunt me. Until I see a cardiologist on January 8th, I won’t know if it’s truly serious. But I can say right now that whatever havoc is being wreaked in my chest has brought a new appreciation for my health.

I’m not just talking about the 5ks and barbells. I mean the general physical well-being I’ve had for the majority of my relatively pain-free, fatigue-free life. Some days, pain and fatigue make aiming for the wastebasket seem impossible, let alone the stars.

Well, nothing lights a fire under an uppity Rib like the impossible.

Today is the first day of the first year of the rest of my forty or fifty-odd years.

I can spend them working for The Man and passively consuming other people’s creativity, then retire with my gold watch and second-hand memories.

Or I can get back in the pool.

Now for the important question: Bikini, one piece, or birthday suit?

I’ll try them all. I have time.

1. I heard a similar clock-ticking when I turned 35 and realized if I wanted kids, I needed to get on the stick, so to speak. But that crisis was resolved in one trip to the mall. [↩]
2. I don’t even want to talk about how lame that looks in print. [↩]

I’m going down to South Park, gonna have myself a time.

It’s a sign you’ve chosen the right job when your new employer encourages you to screw around on the internet on company time.

This is my new cubicle name plate: me singing at the top of my lungs with my iPod,¹ as is my habit. At home anyway. My employer is cool, but not THAT cool.

If you were a South Park character, what would YOU look like?

Technorati Tags: South Park

1. You can’t see him, but Kevin is behind me, laughing. [↩]

I am loved.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I got a new job recently. While I stayed within the same company, I left a team I’d been with since 2003.

It was a bittersweet parting. The new gig is awesome - it’s full-time technical writing, which I’ve been trying to break into forever.

You can’t make the best of omelets without breaking at least one egg, and this seemed to take a dozen.

I had to leave a team in which I feel quite invested, having helped build it into what it is today. But more than that, it’s leaving the team members that is hard, and not just because several of them are my personal friends. They have a tough and often thankless job that is all too easy for outsiders to criticize or undervalue, and I’ve been their champion behind the scenes many, many times. As dorky as it is, it’s been hard to trust that they won’t be flayed alive without Mother Uppity there to protect them.

Anyway, on my last day, my old friends gave me a warm send-off that included a ginormous cake, a righteous Wonder Woman Christmas tree ornament, and this fab t-shirt.¹

Besides singing praises to my writing skills, this shirt is also a wonderful motivator to become more physically fit.² It’s a medium-sized baby-doll, which means that its actual intended wearer is a 16-year-old hottie. While I have no desire to be 16 again, I have nothing against striving for hottie status.

Photo by Lachlan.

Technorati Tags: cool gifts, good friends

1. ”Blurbalicious” refers to the portion of my job that included doing all of the technical writing for our team, including the “blurbs” — those annoying canned messages you get when you write to the customer service department of any large company. [↩]
2. Please note that this observation is entirely my own and should in no way be attributed to the gift-givers. [↩]

Christmas, oh where can you be?

Dear Christmas,

I’ve been waiting since the end of November, but there’s no sign of your cheer yet. Was it something I said?

I have made no Christmas cards and written no yearly Christmas letter.

Kevin actually put up the lights on the house and garage on his own volition, without one nag from me.

Our tree didn’t even go up until way after the first of the month, and even then, it stood bare and dark in the corner for a few days until we took pity on it and decorated.

I adopted a family again this year, but had all the gifts bought, wrapped and delivered within three days. I was fast, efficient, and precise. A donation machine. It’s almost like it never happened.

For friends and family, I’ve bought a total of three gifts…and there’s only twelve shopping days left…

As for me, I want nothing.¹ I have no needs, and I already have enough fun stuff to keep me entertained all year.

Where you at, Christmas?

Maybe you’re around here somewhere and I just haven’t noticed. Come to think of it, a few other things have competed for my attention these past few weeks…

Been very busy at work wrapping up four years’ worth of work as an investigator before I move to a new job in an editorial group next Monday. Happy to be moving on to something new, but sad to leave old friends.²

My perpetual fatigue and increasing exercise intolerance has led my doctor to think I may have developed a leaky heart valve. So I’ll be seeing a cardiologist soon. In addition, looks like my scoliosis may be compressing my lung capacity, so I have to have an X-ray for my back before I suffocate.

Ray Bradbury once said, “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” My post-NaNo hang-over has not been fun, though not un-fun enough to prohibit me from doing it again next year.

Wrapped up as I’ve been in all this nonsense, it’s no wonder your spirit has eluded me. I’m sure you’ve been here all this time, Christmas, waiting patiently for me to stop ignoring you.

But you can’t keep a good holiday down. Sometime between Thanksgiving and today, a pile of empty tins appeared on my kitchen table. Now they are calling to me…things about homemade cookies and gourmet candy and distribution by December 24th.

Don’t give up on me, Christmas, and I won’t give up on you.

1. Except some new footies because mine are falling to pieces, and Kevin’s got that covered in one five-minute trip to J C Pennies. [↩]
2. I had a dream last night that I was defending actions taken by my old team during a conference call with my new team. Mother Hen is leaving the nest. [↩]

The Loafer’s Way, Part 1

I went window shopping at the pet store the other day to see all the cute kittens and puppies that I, Bubble Girl, can’t have. It’s been pretty warm here, and Kitty is sensibly drowsing in her food bowl.

I’m reading the perfect book for summer: How To Be Idle: The Loafer’s Manifesto, by Tom Hodgkinson. If you are a workaholic, this book will show you the error of your ways, how working your fingers to the bone really does just get most of us boney fingers. If you are a would-be idler with one foot in the office and one in the hammock - c’est moi - this book is all you need to convince you to take the plunge.

Why exactly do we work so hard for so very, very little? Because we think we want stuff, need stuff, care about stuff. It’s true that certain stuff, such as food and a roof over one’s head, are important, and thus jobs have their place. But how much consumption do we do that is ultimately pointless?

How much crap do we buy because we think it will bring us happiness - “This is the lipstick that will change your life!” as a friend of mine jokingly said to me once - only to find we’re simply that much more in debt, waiting for the next new crap?

Constant consumption seems to me to be an attempt to fill from without the creative void within. With no time or support for nurturing our own creativity, we consume someone else’s. Chuck the plastic wrapper into the landfill and move on to the next thing. Work, consume, die.

If you really think about this, be careful, because you could end up doing serious self-reflection and reorganization of priorities, a subversive act which, the Idle author argues, is precisely why the “hard work” ethic was created by the ruling classes in the first place. Convince the rabble that they are morally obligated to work their asses off, and they’ll never have the time or energy to figure out you are full of shit.

Technorati Tags: idleness, The Idler, work, kittens

#9: Work.

Like most people, I do not have a job that I can call “a passion.” I would love to be one of those freaks lucky people who has a job that’s so emotionally, intellectually, creatively, and spiritually fulfilling they “don’t even feel like they’re working” when they’re doing it - but I’m not. I work at a desk job, 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, for The Man. And I do my fair share of bitching about it.

But.

In comparison to many jobs I and others have had, I actually have it pretty good. Continue reading »