The new job is going really well. I like the people I am working with directly and those that I only know by phone or e-mail are pretty great, too. I got a greeting card welcoming me aboard from the company's Chief Administrative Officer. In her own pen. The welcome has been overwhelming. It's a very nice place to work.
They keep telling me, only half facetiously, that this is one of those crazy jobs in a crazy place filled with crazy people and had I any hair, I'll soon be tearing it out by the fistful. Upon being told this by literally everyone, my eyes begin to gloss over and I fall into one of those stereotypical Hollywood flashbacks of days gone by. "Target should be clear if you go in low enough! You'll have to decide... decide...decide...." (Please watch the movie Airplane! if you don't understand the previous reference. You can then send me flowers and candy as a thank you for changing your life, forever.
See, my last company, a good one, is in a really tough industry. One could be forgiven if they described it as lose-lose. And keeping people happy, content and otherwise engaged under such difficult circumstances is difficult. At least it proved difficult for me to the extent that I consciously escaped.
There will always be bad days, tough customers, pissy coworkers. Right now, my office is so hot I think I'm going to wither where I sit. I see heat ripples across my monitor like one sees dancing over a hot desert road. The office supply truck, upon which is my brand new fan cannot come soon enough.
So, sure, I am not in the garden of Eden, but for right now, I am enjoying coming down to speed. Certainly I'm challenged. I'm prepared and ready to handle it. I think I'll keep those flashbacks handy for when things do go sideways. It will help me keep perspective!
_______________________________________
Emily's Grandmother passed, one day following her 94th birthday. She was a force of nature in a lot of respects. But she treated me like family from day one and never failed to make me feel welcome and involve me in the goings on of a large, dynamic family.
Grandmother Vera as I called her was smart and funny. She was good for a well placed bon mot and didn't miss much. One could sense her watching the goings on as she held court, trying to keep up with the drama, even after she stopped being able to hear much of it. This, I have long presumed may be why she liked me. My inability to moderate my voice was a positive for Grandmother Vera... She could hear most of what I was saying. And she laughed at my jokes. Anyone who knows me knows that's the real key to my heart.
I remember walking her (considerable) property with her, 15 years ago or so and I marveled at how well an 80 year old got around. Then at 90,. I marveled at her general alacrity. By 93, Vera began to slow. This more than anything made me sad. One of the first things she said to me way back when we first met was she wanted to live until the minute she couldn't be autonomous. She was ready to go and at peace with her accomplishments even then.
I've been to many funerals. Family, friends and oddly quite a few people I hardly knew at all. One of the most emotional was of a woman I had yet to meet. I remember being swept away by emotion as the Cantor in the temple sang prayers. I remember being overwhelmed at the turnout and the diversity of the people in attendance. This was clearly someone who touched lives in a positive way. I missed out meeting her and I was as sad for myself as I was for all the rest of the attendees.
I was not emotional when Grandmother Vera died, nor was I emotional at her funeral. I simply said my standard send off, with a wink and a nod... "Well done, good and faithful servant. Rest now. Your journey is complete, your burden is laid down at the foot of your savior and you can finally be in peace everlasting."
She will be missed, but more importantly, she will be remembered and revered by so many for many years to come. That alone transcends the loss. In the end, Vera got what she wanted, hoped for and prayed for so long. I couldn't find it in me to be sad about that.
Monday, April 6, 2015
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Hitting 'Reset'
I've had a lot of time to think this week. Unfortunately, my week has consisted of an unplanned and forced sabbatical from routine. I have been ill. Not a little ill or inconveniently ill, but really ill. I have been knocked on my ass, frankly, with a couple days being spent mostly in bed alternating between reading and "resting restlessly" and the rest of the time shambling around the house and slouching in my easy chair swathed in blankets and cats.
This fact was not well received by those with and for whom I work, making it even more of a struggle. Sitting at home lamenting being sick while outside forces make being sick a crime is a double whammy.
As I stare at 40, much like I did when I stared at 30, I am taking stock of my life, my direction and the person/husband/son/brother/employee/mentor that I am. I'm not freaked by 40, but I do tend to set my life rhythm to time benchmarks. I understand time. My mind is prone to asking why start something on Thursday? That's not a day to start anything. Hell, by Thursday, I'm focusing on wrapping up the week... Let's do it Monday. Fresh start. New week.
Birthdays, New Years, Lent... these are common benchmarks people use to take stock, make resolutions, come to understandings and perhaps even get around to actions.
Upon looking, I discovered much. Much to like, and much that needed to change.
Interesting that in moments of need, answers come our way to help us untie the knot of conflict. In reading this week, it has come up in multiple books that as workers we spend fully 50% of our waking lives working. We spend untold more hours being on our way to or from work, thinking about work, being preoccupied with work and otherwise not fully engaged in our own lives, families, needs and journeys.
That's fine. Hard work and purpose go hand in hand for me. I don't have kids, so I strongly identify with work. But what's the payoff? What am I supposed to get in return?
Money?
Satisfaction?
Career growth?
A feeling of success or that I made a difference?
Have (at least a little) fun?
Populate your own list. Our expectations are all different. There is no one right answer to fit all people.
It has become clear to me recently my input didn't align with my expected and needed return. Moreover, I came to the conclusion by way of introspection, reading, and covenant conversations with mentors in positions uniquely qualified to offer quality insight, that they never would.
Just as with so many other times in my life, when I needed it most, an opportunity came to me from the clear blue sky.
So, I notified my company that I had made the difficult, but completely correct decision to part ways. It's a good company. Many, many great people are involved. I have been fed, clothed and housed for seven years in return for my investment of time and labor. I have learned,laughed, yelled, become enamored, disillusioned , achieve great clarity, been higher than high and lower than low... sometimes within the same week. As the song says, I still haven't found what I'm looking for.
And then, I got sick.
Timing as they say is everything. And for the last week, I sat on the sidelines, unable to play in my last big game and the coach just handed me my walking papers.
No chanting my name, no Gatorade baths, no being carried off the field on the shoulders of my teammates. Just an inglorious end to what in retrospect will be regarded as the most fascinating time of my life so far, with all the wide open vagueness and opportunity for ambivalence for which the term allows.
I just know I'm done.
So,I face an unexpected but welcome week to go before the new gig. I'll be hitting reset. I've already been catching up on reading and learning and I shall continue. As my strength returns, I shall endeavor to walk, and get fresh air. There is a honey-do list the length of the Dead Sea Scrolls that I can work on, too.
When I was younger, this sort of thing would have had me brooding, angry and indignant. Time has told me that I cannot control circumstances so much as I can control my response to them, and how they affect me and inform how I should cope.
Another central tenet of reading that has come up during this week of infirmity is the notion that everyone wants to change the world, but few start with themselves.
So, I'm hitting 'Reset'
Let's try this again.
This fact was not well received by those with and for whom I work, making it even more of a struggle. Sitting at home lamenting being sick while outside forces make being sick a crime is a double whammy.
As I stare at 40, much like I did when I stared at 30, I am taking stock of my life, my direction and the person/husband/son/brother/employee/mentor that I am. I'm not freaked by 40, but I do tend to set my life rhythm to time benchmarks. I understand time. My mind is prone to asking why start something on Thursday? That's not a day to start anything. Hell, by Thursday, I'm focusing on wrapping up the week... Let's do it Monday. Fresh start. New week.
Birthdays, New Years, Lent... these are common benchmarks people use to take stock, make resolutions, come to understandings and perhaps even get around to actions.
Upon looking, I discovered much. Much to like, and much that needed to change.
Interesting that in moments of need, answers come our way to help us untie the knot of conflict. In reading this week, it has come up in multiple books that as workers we spend fully 50% of our waking lives working. We spend untold more hours being on our way to or from work, thinking about work, being preoccupied with work and otherwise not fully engaged in our own lives, families, needs and journeys.
That's fine. Hard work and purpose go hand in hand for me. I don't have kids, so I strongly identify with work. But what's the payoff? What am I supposed to get in return?
Money?
Satisfaction?
Career growth?
A feeling of success or that I made a difference?
Have (at least a little) fun?
Populate your own list. Our expectations are all different. There is no one right answer to fit all people.
It has become clear to me recently my input didn't align with my expected and needed return. Moreover, I came to the conclusion by way of introspection, reading, and covenant conversations with mentors in positions uniquely qualified to offer quality insight, that they never would.
Just as with so many other times in my life, when I needed it most, an opportunity came to me from the clear blue sky.
So, I notified my company that I had made the difficult, but completely correct decision to part ways. It's a good company. Many, many great people are involved. I have been fed, clothed and housed for seven years in return for my investment of time and labor. I have learned,laughed, yelled, become enamored, disillusioned , achieve great clarity, been higher than high and lower than low... sometimes within the same week. As the song says, I still haven't found what I'm looking for.
And then, I got sick.
Timing as they say is everything. And for the last week, I sat on the sidelines, unable to play in my last big game and the coach just handed me my walking papers.
No chanting my name, no Gatorade baths, no being carried off the field on the shoulders of my teammates. Just an inglorious end to what in retrospect will be regarded as the most fascinating time of my life so far, with all the wide open vagueness and opportunity for ambivalence for which the term allows.
I just know I'm done.
So,I face an unexpected but welcome week to go before the new gig. I'll be hitting reset. I've already been catching up on reading and learning and I shall continue. As my strength returns, I shall endeavor to walk, and get fresh air. There is a honey-do list the length of the Dead Sea Scrolls that I can work on, too.
When I was younger, this sort of thing would have had me brooding, angry and indignant. Time has told me that I cannot control circumstances so much as I can control my response to them, and how they affect me and inform how I should cope.
Another central tenet of reading that has come up during this week of infirmity is the notion that everyone wants to change the world, but few start with themselves.
So, I'm hitting 'Reset'
Let's try this again.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Road Raging Eco Weenies Under the Influence of One Too Many Lattes
I am presently sitting in a vacant suite on the 3rd floor of a mid-rise building in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For the first time in a considerably long 10 or so days of work in a row, I have a moment to relax and reflect.
I get around a lot, driving sometimes thousands of miles a week. You read that right, thousands. Last week was nearly 2,000 miles. Now, that hardly qualifies as thousands, but this is Grandiose Ruminations, not Exact Accountings, so let's just go with it.
I see a lot of boneheaded "maneuvers", if you can put such a lovely sobriquet on some of the idiot things I see. What spurred on this particular blog was the anger and tension I feel, 40 feet up from the hustling throng of rush hour traffic below.
Ann Arbor, for those of you unaware, is condidered the quintessence of laid back cosmopolitan living in Michigan. Progressive, (and that's an understatement, for I have termed this town "The Peoples' Republic of Ann Arbor"), exuding a studied cool, you would think you were in Portland, Oregon, but for the fact you would worship Wolverines instead of Ducks.
But from the sounds of the car horns on the third floor of this building at the corner of Main and Huron, I hear tension. I hear anger, I hear... wussy ass car horns.
The problem with having road rage while driving a Prius or its ilk is that you don't get a good "EFFFFFFFFYOU" horn. You get a soft, sorta polite horn that sounds more like a kazoo that went to the gym sometimes a few years ago. They barely move enough air to warrant a doppler effect as they pass by.
One particularly angry person in a Hondota Fitrolla just melted the entire front end of his car by staying on the horn too long in his protest of some fair trade coffee drinking pedestrian who was not paying attention to the big red hand exhorting her to stop. This little horn started up sad, waned quickly toward the end and finally became piteously dead as if the song of white breasted swan, even as the amped up driver, no doubt wearing the latest fashions and listening to NPR at a reasonable and prudent volume, pressed with all his might at the center of the tiny steering wheel, not unlike the ones in the driving games he probably developed as a software coder down the street.
Chillax, bro... this is Ann Arbor. This is not the place to waste energy on anger. Anger causes heavy respiration, heavy respiration emits carbon dioxide... a greenhouse gas. You just became part of the problem! Now you have to donate nine months of your life on a Greenpeace vessel that runs on self importance and used french fry oil. Sure, whale oil would work in a pinch, but the mere suggestion of that seems to be onerous to some folks. Those that live in Ann Arbor, especially.
Now Naples, Italy, that's a place that knows how to use a car horn. In fact, I think it's the accepted language of the city. It pervades the atmosphere. It is relentless. For all its ferocity, if one were to listen long enough, with enough sensitivity to the nuance, one would hear subtlety in the different patterns of honks.
There exists a "c'mon, I'm not going to give you this space forever" honk just as there is the ubiquitous "BUFANDO, EH!" America seems to only focus on the latter.
There exists a great need for a couple things in this advanced world of ours. Those are a sarcasm font, which I am convinced will drop the murder rate to nearly zero in most major urban areas, and a dual or even tri-note horn so we can bring nuance to the inter-car and car to pedestrian communication home to America.
Forget the moon, Mars or interstellar travel. We as a race will look at every day that came before the invention of the multi-gesture horn as the dark times. Life as we know it now will cease to exist and a new age of radically advanced humanism will emerge, like some sort of, I don't know... renaissance. (Note to self, wiki "renaissance" and take credit for it if it has't been used.)
I drive a sporty little Audi that is the paragon of conspicuous consumption. It is the smallest car with the biggest motor sporting the loudest exhaust possible. It has a horn the size of Schwarzenegger in a body the size of Jenner. It's bodaciously loud coming and going. It is obnoxious and wholly inappropriate for a town like Ann Arbor. At least that's how I interpret the looks from the gaggle of "adjunct professors", (read underemployed academics cum baristas), hanging out on the corner, hoping to attract the eye of some university dean, cruising silently in his hybrid electric car for the next young thing to "tutor".
It is clear I am not what they are looking for, which is fine. I will just turn up my obnoxiously loud stereo and thump down the street, ejecting whole epochs worth of dead organic things out of the quad tailpipes of my car in a gear that allows for that subtle little 'poppoppopopop' of timing overrun as I let off the gas to coast to the intersection.
That's how to chill, Ann Arbor. Take a lesson.
Bill Uebbing is the Author of Grandiose Ruminations Rooted in Minutiae and he thinks very highly of himself, thank you very much.
I get around a lot, driving sometimes thousands of miles a week. You read that right, thousands. Last week was nearly 2,000 miles. Now, that hardly qualifies as thousands, but this is Grandiose Ruminations, not Exact Accountings, so let's just go with it.
I see a lot of boneheaded "maneuvers", if you can put such a lovely sobriquet on some of the idiot things I see. What spurred on this particular blog was the anger and tension I feel, 40 feet up from the hustling throng of rush hour traffic below.
Ann Arbor, for those of you unaware, is condidered the quintessence of laid back cosmopolitan living in Michigan. Progressive, (and that's an understatement, for I have termed this town "The Peoples' Republic of Ann Arbor"), exuding a studied cool, you would think you were in Portland, Oregon, but for the fact you would worship Wolverines instead of Ducks.
But from the sounds of the car horns on the third floor of this building at the corner of Main and Huron, I hear tension. I hear anger, I hear... wussy ass car horns.
The problem with having road rage while driving a Prius or its ilk is that you don't get a good "EFFFFFFFFYOU" horn. You get a soft, sorta polite horn that sounds more like a kazoo that went to the gym sometimes a few years ago. They barely move enough air to warrant a doppler effect as they pass by.
One particularly angry person in a Hondota Fitrolla just melted the entire front end of his car by staying on the horn too long in his protest of some fair trade coffee drinking pedestrian who was not paying attention to the big red hand exhorting her to stop. This little horn started up sad, waned quickly toward the end and finally became piteously dead as if the song of white breasted swan, even as the amped up driver, no doubt wearing the latest fashions and listening to NPR at a reasonable and prudent volume, pressed with all his might at the center of the tiny steering wheel, not unlike the ones in the driving games he probably developed as a software coder down the street.
Chillax, bro... this is Ann Arbor. This is not the place to waste energy on anger. Anger causes heavy respiration, heavy respiration emits carbon dioxide... a greenhouse gas. You just became part of the problem! Now you have to donate nine months of your life on a Greenpeace vessel that runs on self importance and used french fry oil. Sure, whale oil would work in a pinch, but the mere suggestion of that seems to be onerous to some folks. Those that live in Ann Arbor, especially.
Now Naples, Italy, that's a place that knows how to use a car horn. In fact, I think it's the accepted language of the city. It pervades the atmosphere. It is relentless. For all its ferocity, if one were to listen long enough, with enough sensitivity to the nuance, one would hear subtlety in the different patterns of honks.
There exists a "c'mon, I'm not going to give you this space forever" honk just as there is the ubiquitous "BUFANDO, EH!" America seems to only focus on the latter.
There exists a great need for a couple things in this advanced world of ours. Those are a sarcasm font, which I am convinced will drop the murder rate to nearly zero in most major urban areas, and a dual or even tri-note horn so we can bring nuance to the inter-car and car to pedestrian communication home to America.
Forget the moon, Mars or interstellar travel. We as a race will look at every day that came before the invention of the multi-gesture horn as the dark times. Life as we know it now will cease to exist and a new age of radically advanced humanism will emerge, like some sort of, I don't know... renaissance. (Note to self, wiki "renaissance" and take credit for it if it has't been used.)
I drive a sporty little Audi that is the paragon of conspicuous consumption. It is the smallest car with the biggest motor sporting the loudest exhaust possible. It has a horn the size of Schwarzenegger in a body the size of Jenner. It's bodaciously loud coming and going. It is obnoxious and wholly inappropriate for a town like Ann Arbor. At least that's how I interpret the looks from the gaggle of "adjunct professors", (read underemployed academics cum baristas), hanging out on the corner, hoping to attract the eye of some university dean, cruising silently in his hybrid electric car for the next young thing to "tutor".
It is clear I am not what they are looking for, which is fine. I will just turn up my obnoxiously loud stereo and thump down the street, ejecting whole epochs worth of dead organic things out of the quad tailpipes of my car in a gear that allows for that subtle little 'poppoppopopop' of timing overrun as I let off the gas to coast to the intersection.
That's how to chill, Ann Arbor. Take a lesson.
Bill Uebbing is the Author of Grandiose Ruminations Rooted in Minutiae and he thinks very highly of himself, thank you very much.
Friday, October 24, 2014
For Me, on My Thirty-Nine-and-a-Halfth Birthday
October 20th was my "half birthday", which was a thing I never knew existed until I met my wife. Her lust for life and love of all things party mean that she seldom misses a reason to celebrate… something. Anything! Even a concept as cockamamy as a half birthday.
This is clearly a milestone that never meant much to me. Until this past Sunday, I realized that Monday, I would be halfway to 40.
Really, I was halfway to 40 nearly 20 years ago, but the beauty, (and great frustration), of youth prevents us from thinking that way. Even if it has been a long time coming, from a psychological perspective, Monday started the final countdown to the big four-oh.
I know 40 isn't old and I don't fear 40. I struggle to put 40 in a context as I still regard myself as 19. I get jostled each and every morning when I splash some water in my face and see...
I haven't aged. But my reflection sure has been through the wringer. I feel badly for my reflection. It looks weathered. It looks tired. Sometimes, if I dare to look long enough, it looks a little sad. What has my reflection been doing wrong? I've been having a great time!
So, here we are at (nearly) 40, my reflection and me. One of us, young and spritely, spirited and immutable, the other bedraggled, frayed and worn. Both part of the same whole, fighting for supremacy. I think I have the upper hand for now, but my ever-aging reflection will inevitably win. I already prefer to eat dinner by five-thirty and be in bed by ten-o'clock. Can curmudgionism be far behind?
I do feel a twinge of rage from deep within me each time my George Carlin looking, pith helmet wearing mailman treads through my lawn to deliver bills, coupons for erectile medications and AARP applications. Can screaming "Get off my lawn, hippie!", be far behind?
My mother is fond of saying, "Bill, people don't get any nicer as they get older." I suppose she's right, as proven by the 90-ish year old man weaving about traffic completely oblivious to the chaos he was causing to those behind and abeam of him, who responded with an angry fist out the window to the several toots of the horn he received in return.
He may have been shouting "Get off my road, hippies!"
If I had the mentality of a 20 something, these inexorable eventualities would seem to be a long way off. But, based on my experience, it will be here before I know it, assuming I survive that long.
Isn't that the difference between time in your 20s and time as you age? Time accelerates exponentially with the acquisition of wisdom and experience. Perhaps someone who actually knows something about math could express this as an equation, like;
Velocity of time x function of acceleration (and them some superscript number) = Body aches *
Widsom + (Skinned knees + car accidents + Divorces)
Depth of wrinkles * # of times quitting smoking/Broken hearts
# of kids/ #of pets =Perception of Passage of Time
The answer is, I failed algebra. There are a whole host of teachers who tried so hard with me who just read that mess and laid their iPods down and closed their eyes, hoping to never open them again. For you, I am truly sorry. It's me, not you. I know you tried.
Humanity has achieved so much of what it has because it has learned to control its environment. We were hungry, so we hunted. We were cold, so we used the pelts of our kills to cloth and shelter us. We were bored so we had sex and made more people. We got tired of moving these big families all the time, ("No, Og, we are not there yet!"), and living under mammoth skins, so we built the first subdivisions, planted crops and started even bigger families, ("Thag, quit touching your brother!"). Then we decided to branch out and we built careers. Some became blacksmiths, winemakers, teachers and entertainers. Others became politicians, prostitutes and preachers. After awhile, we got tired of walking, so we made wheeled conveyances culminating in the car. And we loved the car, so we made drive through windows. We got fat, and we could no longer move. So we made TV to entertain us in our ever bigger and more complex homes, very few of which include anything like a mammoth pelt roof!
All this grooming and control of our world. We have tamed the unruly. Clothed the naked. Sheltered the weak. Made convenient the toil of daily existence.
Yet, we cannot stop time. We cannot stop getting older.
That reflection in the mirror is me, like it or not. And I'm not the 19 year-old that has squatters' rights in my head. I ache. I am tired. I get disillusioned and wish I had taken the time to accomplish more…
Looked at another way, my reflection is more than the aged reality of the ideal me. It shows me what I have accomplished. A successful marriage, a home, more friends than I can count. I have learned, loved and lost. I have shared great joy. I have been the cause of and the cure for great pain in myself and others. Occasionally, I write and plink a little song on the ukulele.
I have come to a peace and understanding with the universe in which I occupy centered around the fact that I don't have to understand how or why something is, but I have the ability to adapt and float along. I don't always have to know the answer or be right, but I can teach and develop others as they do the same for me.
Time speeds up just as I am slowing down. Not in a physical sense, though that is happening, too, but in a metaphysical sense. I'm not ready to adopt the "Be Calm, And Carry On" mantra just yet, but I'm dealing. Sometimes, that's the most you can hope for and the best you can do.
Somewhere, I think my reflection just smiled at me.
This is clearly a milestone that never meant much to me. Until this past Sunday, I realized that Monday, I would be halfway to 40.
Really, I was halfway to 40 nearly 20 years ago, but the beauty, (and great frustration), of youth prevents us from thinking that way. Even if it has been a long time coming, from a psychological perspective, Monday started the final countdown to the big four-oh.
I know 40 isn't old and I don't fear 40. I struggle to put 40 in a context as I still regard myself as 19. I get jostled each and every morning when I splash some water in my face and see...
I haven't aged. But my reflection sure has been through the wringer. I feel badly for my reflection. It looks weathered. It looks tired. Sometimes, if I dare to look long enough, it looks a little sad. What has my reflection been doing wrong? I've been having a great time!
So, here we are at (nearly) 40, my reflection and me. One of us, young and spritely, spirited and immutable, the other bedraggled, frayed and worn. Both part of the same whole, fighting for supremacy. I think I have the upper hand for now, but my ever-aging reflection will inevitably win. I already prefer to eat dinner by five-thirty and be in bed by ten-o'clock. Can curmudgionism be far behind?
I do feel a twinge of rage from deep within me each time my George Carlin looking, pith helmet wearing mailman treads through my lawn to deliver bills, coupons for erectile medications and AARP applications. Can screaming "Get off my lawn, hippie!", be far behind?
My mother is fond of saying, "Bill, people don't get any nicer as they get older." I suppose she's right, as proven by the 90-ish year old man weaving about traffic completely oblivious to the chaos he was causing to those behind and abeam of him, who responded with an angry fist out the window to the several toots of the horn he received in return.
He may have been shouting "Get off my road, hippies!"
If I had the mentality of a 20 something, these inexorable eventualities would seem to be a long way off. But, based on my experience, it will be here before I know it, assuming I survive that long.
Isn't that the difference between time in your 20s and time as you age? Time accelerates exponentially with the acquisition of wisdom and experience. Perhaps someone who actually knows something about math could express this as an equation, like;
Velocity of time x function of acceleration (and them some superscript number) = Body aches *
Widsom + (Skinned knees + car accidents + Divorces)
Depth of wrinkles * # of times quitting smoking/Broken hearts
# of kids/ #of pets =Perception of Passage of Time
The answer is, I failed algebra. There are a whole host of teachers who tried so hard with me who just read that mess and laid their iPods down and closed their eyes, hoping to never open them again. For you, I am truly sorry. It's me, not you. I know you tried.
Humanity has achieved so much of what it has because it has learned to control its environment. We were hungry, so we hunted. We were cold, so we used the pelts of our kills to cloth and shelter us. We were bored so we had sex and made more people. We got tired of moving these big families all the time, ("No, Og, we are not there yet!"), and living under mammoth skins, so we built the first subdivisions, planted crops and started even bigger families, ("Thag, quit touching your brother!"). Then we decided to branch out and we built careers. Some became blacksmiths, winemakers, teachers and entertainers. Others became politicians, prostitutes and preachers. After awhile, we got tired of walking, so we made wheeled conveyances culminating in the car. And we loved the car, so we made drive through windows. We got fat, and we could no longer move. So we made TV to entertain us in our ever bigger and more complex homes, very few of which include anything like a mammoth pelt roof!
All this grooming and control of our world. We have tamed the unruly. Clothed the naked. Sheltered the weak. Made convenient the toil of daily existence.
Yet, we cannot stop time. We cannot stop getting older.
That reflection in the mirror is me, like it or not. And I'm not the 19 year-old that has squatters' rights in my head. I ache. I am tired. I get disillusioned and wish I had taken the time to accomplish more…
Looked at another way, my reflection is more than the aged reality of the ideal me. It shows me what I have accomplished. A successful marriage, a home, more friends than I can count. I have learned, loved and lost. I have shared great joy. I have been the cause of and the cure for great pain in myself and others. Occasionally, I write and plink a little song on the ukulele.
I have come to a peace and understanding with the universe in which I occupy centered around the fact that I don't have to understand how or why something is, but I have the ability to adapt and float along. I don't always have to know the answer or be right, but I can teach and develop others as they do the same for me.
Time speeds up just as I am slowing down. Not in a physical sense, though that is happening, too, but in a metaphysical sense. I'm not ready to adopt the "Be Calm, And Carry On" mantra just yet, but I'm dealing. Sometimes, that's the most you can hope for and the best you can do.
Somewhere, I think my reflection just smiled at me.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
The Falling Leaves
Another fall is upon us. I hate it. It's that simple. No flowery phrases needed. I hate fall.
"But, Bill," you ask, "what about all the pretty colors?"
That's death! You sadistic, twisted monster! Stuff is dying. You should be sitting shiva, and instead you weirdos are out there taking special drives in the country to ogle at death!
"Oh, Louis, look at the colors!" you say.
But if you spoke tree, you'd here them screaming and crying, "We're dying and all you do is stare at us! Help us!"
"But the air is so crisp!"
Yes, the Arctic Express and Alberta Clipper have a tendency to make what was a perfectly wonderful period of temperate weather seem particularly brisk. Give it a month. You'll be cashing in frequent flyer miles for as far south as you can go. Lexington, perhaps. Or, if you don't have a good program, Toledo.
I don't like fall. Not for what it is, but for what it portends. The whole season is an omen for the disastrous period coming on its heels. Fall is screaming at us, "When all that is living, and the very earth itself are preparing to go into stasis, It's a good time to get out!"
But, like every stupid family at the beginning of every horror movie, we stay. "Let's just splash some paint on the walls and smudge some sage, the place will be like new!"
Nomadic tribes never put a person on the moon, didn't have HBO, and literally kicked people out of the tribe by lighting their house on fire, (hence being 'fired'). Yet they were savvy enough that they would head back down the hill when things started going downhill.
Maybe that's why we call it fall after all. It isn't because the leaves are falling, it's because the whole thing is about to collapse. Falling is bad. Always. Never once in the history of mankind has falling been a good thing.
Rome fell. That poor lady on the TV fell 25 years ago and still can't get up. Stars, athletes and religious wonks fall from grace. A person's smile falls into a frown. When the bough broke, the cradle fell - with baby and all!
For you intellectuals who might counter that the Berlin Wall fell and the Third Reich fell, and those were good things, I would say to you that the Berlin Wall falling and putting Germany back together may not prove to be so good. Germans, are the same people that brought you the "war to end all wars", lost it, and then brought you it's sequel! You think we've heard the last of them? When they're the quietest… that's when you need to pay most attention.
"But love, Bill. People fall in love!"
Sure they do. Like Syd and Nancy- with great toxicity and eventually, death. Paul and Heather, too. Ask Paul if sleeping with a cute-ish blonde amputee was worth the $275M it cost him. Britney and Kevin were in love long enough to make a baby. Two babies, even. By my math, they were in love for as long as 30 seconds! There are any number of other tragic couplings. Ask the minions of divorcees how they feel about that!
I might add, people fall out of love just the same. The saddest song there ever was is "When Autumn Leaves Start to Fall." Oh. My. God! That proves it…your argument is invalid.
Fall is bad. We should run, people. Not walk. Burlington can't make enough coats. Bridgestone can't produce enough snow tires. My deep freezer is cannot hold enough Girl Scout cookies, bourbon and fatty meats to get me through the winter.
Those same trees you all ooh and ahh about will be chopped to smithereens and sacrificed to the use of my chilled bones as I huddle afore the hearth, staring intently at the warm, dancing flames, wondering, "should I jump in?"
I'm not monied, so I can't 'winter' anywhere. I'm stuck. Que lastima! I will have to hunker in, bear down, grit my teeth, gird my loins and stiffen my upper lip. All of which will be hard to do while I'm in the fetal position, facing the corner, rocking and crying softly to myself. Weeping salty tears, which before too long, will freeze to my face holding its contorted look of anguish in suspension until that day comes on the other side when the sun shines warmly again upon my face and the rain falls softly upon my field.
Until we meet again… wish me luck. I'm gonna need it.
"But, Bill," you ask, "what about all the pretty colors?"
That's death! You sadistic, twisted monster! Stuff is dying. You should be sitting shiva, and instead you weirdos are out there taking special drives in the country to ogle at death!
"Oh, Louis, look at the colors!" you say.
But if you spoke tree, you'd here them screaming and crying, "We're dying and all you do is stare at us! Help us!"
"But the air is so crisp!"
Yes, the Arctic Express and Alberta Clipper have a tendency to make what was a perfectly wonderful period of temperate weather seem particularly brisk. Give it a month. You'll be cashing in frequent flyer miles for as far south as you can go. Lexington, perhaps. Or, if you don't have a good program, Toledo.
I don't like fall. Not for what it is, but for what it portends. The whole season is an omen for the disastrous period coming on its heels. Fall is screaming at us, "When all that is living, and the very earth itself are preparing to go into stasis, It's a good time to get out!"
But, like every stupid family at the beginning of every horror movie, we stay. "Let's just splash some paint on the walls and smudge some sage, the place will be like new!"
Nomadic tribes never put a person on the moon, didn't have HBO, and literally kicked people out of the tribe by lighting their house on fire, (hence being 'fired'). Yet they were savvy enough that they would head back down the hill when things started going downhill.
Maybe that's why we call it fall after all. It isn't because the leaves are falling, it's because the whole thing is about to collapse. Falling is bad. Always. Never once in the history of mankind has falling been a good thing.
Rome fell. That poor lady on the TV fell 25 years ago and still can't get up. Stars, athletes and religious wonks fall from grace. A person's smile falls into a frown. When the bough broke, the cradle fell - with baby and all!
For you intellectuals who might counter that the Berlin Wall fell and the Third Reich fell, and those were good things, I would say to you that the Berlin Wall falling and putting Germany back together may not prove to be so good. Germans, are the same people that brought you the "war to end all wars", lost it, and then brought you it's sequel! You think we've heard the last of them? When they're the quietest… that's when you need to pay most attention.
"But love, Bill. People fall in love!"
Sure they do. Like Syd and Nancy- with great toxicity and eventually, death. Paul and Heather, too. Ask Paul if sleeping with a cute-ish blonde amputee was worth the $275M it cost him. Britney and Kevin were in love long enough to make a baby. Two babies, even. By my math, they were in love for as long as 30 seconds! There are any number of other tragic couplings. Ask the minions of divorcees how they feel about that!
I might add, people fall out of love just the same. The saddest song there ever was is "When Autumn Leaves Start to Fall." Oh. My. God! That proves it…your argument is invalid.
Fall is bad. We should run, people. Not walk. Burlington can't make enough coats. Bridgestone can't produce enough snow tires. My deep freezer is cannot hold enough Girl Scout cookies, bourbon and fatty meats to get me through the winter.
Those same trees you all ooh and ahh about will be chopped to smithereens and sacrificed to the use of my chilled bones as I huddle afore the hearth, staring intently at the warm, dancing flames, wondering, "should I jump in?"
I'm not monied, so I can't 'winter' anywhere. I'm stuck. Que lastima! I will have to hunker in, bear down, grit my teeth, gird my loins and stiffen my upper lip. All of which will be hard to do while I'm in the fetal position, facing the corner, rocking and crying softly to myself. Weeping salty tears, which before too long, will freeze to my face holding its contorted look of anguish in suspension until that day comes on the other side when the sun shines warmly again upon my face and the rain falls softly upon my field.
Until we meet again… wish me luck. I'm gonna need it.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Death by Meeting
I spend a lot of time in meetings. A lot. There are several general behaviors that are predictable and occasionally even hilarious.
Repetition of favorite phrases:
I can't tell you how often I use the term "manage by exception." Basically, this is a more professional and self-important way to say, "I don't have the first clue of what the consequence of this decision is going to be, so let's just do it and see what happens." Or, even more succinctly, "Let's wing it."
I'm not the only one. There are myriad examples. I have a colleague who likes to say, in his drawl, "I'll sit here and say…" He sits and says all the time. In fact, he seldom speaks without sitting here, apparently. I for one am glad to hear he is sitting there and saying, because if he was suddenly standing behind me and saying, I'd be alarmed. Sometimes it's good to know the whereabouts of your coworkers.
The same co-worker likes to use the word "spot" like the Smurfs use the word "surf." Its an omni-word. He might be heard to say, "I'm gonna sit here and say that we need to put that spot into that spot right there…" Well said.
There is one guy who likes to say "pursuant to." Everything is pursuant to something else. "Pursuant to the last statement, I'd like to indicate my agreement to that statement." Brilliant.
Yet one more doesn't know the difference between 'agreement' and 'aggreance'. If you're racing to look up the word aggreance, I'll save you the hassle… it doesn't exist. Except to this person, who also likes to use it in its totally made-up plural form. "Bill, I'm in a hundred-percent aggreances with you…"
I am so glad. I was worried that you weren't.
Varying levels of involvement:
I often put conference calls on hold and leave for minutes at a time. On occasion, I come back and throw in a "harumph" a "huzzah" or some such thing. This makes it seem like I've been there the whole time.
Even if I'm not leaving, I seldom don't multitask. I'm on a video conference right now. Writing this. While others can see my video feed. So I have to look and act interested while really doing my own thing. This is quite a feat. It takes a lot of energy to do all that. And I'm typing in "super-quiet mode" so that they can't hear the clacking of the keys.
Oops, here's a part I need to do. I'll be right back.
Ok, false alarm. The guy running the meeting apparently knows my part better than I do. No sweat. This is another example of a trend I notice.
There's always one guy who knows everything - as long as you knew it first:
I may be the one that's supposed to present on something, but there's some guy who always knows more than I do… even if he only is presenting "facts" after I have presented them. That happens a lot with a couple of my coworkers that like to take what I just said and make it their own, often to much ballyhoo and backslapping. I've actually said great things that were then repeated by a coworker and the coworker was told, "great job!"
Indeed.
The dipsy-doodle:
Just yesterday, another senior manager called a conference call, including people in three offices on both sides of our operating footprint. No agenda, just a meeting request. So we call in and the manager says, "Ok, Bill, why don't you get started…"
I knew the general topic of the meeting, but did not know why the meeting was called, what the meeting was to accomplish and by what means those enigmas were supposed to be communicated.
I fumbled through, though the people on my end knew precisely that "we" had no idea why "we" called a meeting. Nothing worse than a group of busy people shooting eye daggers at you because they know you are wasting their time.
I called said co-worker after the fact and said in no uncertain terms, "Don't ever, ever do that again. You call the meeting, you run the meeting. Do it again and I will throw you under the bus so fast you won't know your mama's name."
Hang on… I might need to go for real this time.
I said, "Ok." That's my biggest contribution to the meeting so far. Which brings me to my final point.
The unnecessarily large meeting:
In my world, meetings are attended by approximately 300% more people than need to be there. It is almost like every meeting is treated as though a dying tribal elder is assembling the village to tell his last epic story for the last time. There are scribes, there are people I didn't even know worked for us, there are managers nodding reverently and others looking at the rest of us wondering just what the hell to do.
This makes what could be a 10 minute phone confab between two or three people an hour-long ordeal at the end of which everyone in the room is made to state their unconditional commitment to the cause and their specific take-away.
Incidentally, this is the act of repeating in different words what the first person said, since there was only one thing you could possibly take away from the meeting that is proper to share in a corporate meeting setting.
So, for thirty minutes, twenty-two people in three states are playing the, "I can make what you just said sound better and more important" game. Priceless.
One hour, 10 minutes into this meeting, I have now said, "OK" and "Yes". I wrote a blog post, laughed when appropriate, did my harrumphs and huzzahs, caught up on Twitter, peed, and texted one of my managers, which incidentally, actually accomplished something.
Overall, an above average meeting.
Repetition of favorite phrases:
I can't tell you how often I use the term "manage by exception." Basically, this is a more professional and self-important way to say, "I don't have the first clue of what the consequence of this decision is going to be, so let's just do it and see what happens." Or, even more succinctly, "Let's wing it."
I'm not the only one. There are myriad examples. I have a colleague who likes to say, in his drawl, "I'll sit here and say…" He sits and says all the time. In fact, he seldom speaks without sitting here, apparently. I for one am glad to hear he is sitting there and saying, because if he was suddenly standing behind me and saying, I'd be alarmed. Sometimes it's good to know the whereabouts of your coworkers.
The same co-worker likes to use the word "spot" like the Smurfs use the word "surf." Its an omni-word. He might be heard to say, "I'm gonna sit here and say that we need to put that spot into that spot right there…" Well said.
There is one guy who likes to say "pursuant to." Everything is pursuant to something else. "Pursuant to the last statement, I'd like to indicate my agreement to that statement." Brilliant.
Yet one more doesn't know the difference between 'agreement' and 'aggreance'. If you're racing to look up the word aggreance, I'll save you the hassle… it doesn't exist. Except to this person, who also likes to use it in its totally made-up plural form. "Bill, I'm in a hundred-percent aggreances with you…"
I am so glad. I was worried that you weren't.
Varying levels of involvement:
I often put conference calls on hold and leave for minutes at a time. On occasion, I come back and throw in a "harumph" a "huzzah" or some such thing. This makes it seem like I've been there the whole time.
Even if I'm not leaving, I seldom don't multitask. I'm on a video conference right now. Writing this. While others can see my video feed. So I have to look and act interested while really doing my own thing. This is quite a feat. It takes a lot of energy to do all that. And I'm typing in "super-quiet mode" so that they can't hear the clacking of the keys.
Oops, here's a part I need to do. I'll be right back.
Ok, false alarm. The guy running the meeting apparently knows my part better than I do. No sweat. This is another example of a trend I notice.
There's always one guy who knows everything - as long as you knew it first:
I may be the one that's supposed to present on something, but there's some guy who always knows more than I do… even if he only is presenting "facts" after I have presented them. That happens a lot with a couple of my coworkers that like to take what I just said and make it their own, often to much ballyhoo and backslapping. I've actually said great things that were then repeated by a coworker and the coworker was told, "great job!"
Indeed.
The dipsy-doodle:
Just yesterday, another senior manager called a conference call, including people in three offices on both sides of our operating footprint. No agenda, just a meeting request. So we call in and the manager says, "Ok, Bill, why don't you get started…"
I knew the general topic of the meeting, but did not know why the meeting was called, what the meeting was to accomplish and by what means those enigmas were supposed to be communicated.
I fumbled through, though the people on my end knew precisely that "we" had no idea why "we" called a meeting. Nothing worse than a group of busy people shooting eye daggers at you because they know you are wasting their time.
I called said co-worker after the fact and said in no uncertain terms, "Don't ever, ever do that again. You call the meeting, you run the meeting. Do it again and I will throw you under the bus so fast you won't know your mama's name."
Hang on… I might need to go for real this time.
I said, "Ok." That's my biggest contribution to the meeting so far. Which brings me to my final point.
The unnecessarily large meeting:
In my world, meetings are attended by approximately 300% more people than need to be there. It is almost like every meeting is treated as though a dying tribal elder is assembling the village to tell his last epic story for the last time. There are scribes, there are people I didn't even know worked for us, there are managers nodding reverently and others looking at the rest of us wondering just what the hell to do.
This makes what could be a 10 minute phone confab between two or three people an hour-long ordeal at the end of which everyone in the room is made to state their unconditional commitment to the cause and their specific take-away.
Incidentally, this is the act of repeating in different words what the first person said, since there was only one thing you could possibly take away from the meeting that is proper to share in a corporate meeting setting.
So, for thirty minutes, twenty-two people in three states are playing the, "I can make what you just said sound better and more important" game. Priceless.
One hour, 10 minutes into this meeting, I have now said, "OK" and "Yes". I wrote a blog post, laughed when appropriate, did my harrumphs and huzzahs, caught up on Twitter, peed, and texted one of my managers, which incidentally, actually accomplished something.
Overall, an above average meeting.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Strumming
It's been a long, long time since I have seated myself in front of the computer with the express intention of writing a blog post. Even now, I'm doing it only because my meeting, supposed to be going at 8:00 this morning, is still not going at 8:39.
I hate waiting. Why do they make me wait?
Rather than blogging, my creative outlet over the last several months has been music. Not just the listening to, as that is always a favorite pastime of my, but the making of. The making of is new. Well, not new, latent. Not latent, reborn. Yes, reborn.
And while one of my esteemed high school youth said it best when she said of the ukulele, "It's not that big a deal… it's like the recorder of stringed instruments…", I have been teaching myself to play. I've never played a stringed instrument before, unless you count my fifth grade foray into the cello. I assure you, you should not count my fifth grade foray into the cello. As soon as we started using that pesky bow, I was out. I loved plucking the thing, though.
Perhaps Mrs. Legree failed to notice my potential as a stand-up bassist. I could be hooked on drugs playing for tips in a jazz band today, if only she had nurtured me.
Oh, lost opportunity!
I think part of my desire to learn the ukulele is that it is simple. But really it's because of my cracked sense of humor and incessant self-deprication. There is something weird and creepy and funny about a big fat guy that looks like a biker, (the words of another of my blatantly honest high school students), playing a little stringed instrument.
Like a caricature, it is funny because it is obtuse. A little off. Just like me.
Of course, I don't play Hawaiian happy-go-lucky music on it either. The first song I learned was "Mother", by Pink Floyd; A treatise on an overbearing, overprotective mother who stifles her young boy into insanity.
Such serious pretense played on such a "happy" instrument. That, my friends is a funny juxtaposition.
Surprisingly, I have really taken to playing. I enjoy it immensely and play as often as possible. It is the only activity that can take me out of my day and put me into a place of relaxation. I will, given the chance, play for a couple hours in a sit.
I don't like playing in front of other people. I'm frequently frustrated by my inability to play and sing some more complex songs at the same time. It seems to be one or the other right now.
But I am getting better and I am still enjoying myself and I am glad that Emily bought me the instrument as a birthday present. Since I am on the mailing list for guitar center now, I see they have a sale on a mandolin. That would be fun. I figure the uke is a gateway drug to the guitar, at least. Or perhaps even the stand-up bass.
Now that's growth.
I hate waiting. Why do they make me wait?
Rather than blogging, my creative outlet over the last several months has been music. Not just the listening to, as that is always a favorite pastime of my, but the making of. The making of is new. Well, not new, latent. Not latent, reborn. Yes, reborn.
And while one of my esteemed high school youth said it best when she said of the ukulele, "It's not that big a deal… it's like the recorder of stringed instruments…", I have been teaching myself to play. I've never played a stringed instrument before, unless you count my fifth grade foray into the cello. I assure you, you should not count my fifth grade foray into the cello. As soon as we started using that pesky bow, I was out. I loved plucking the thing, though.
Perhaps Mrs. Legree failed to notice my potential as a stand-up bassist. I could be hooked on drugs playing for tips in a jazz band today, if only she had nurtured me.
Oh, lost opportunity!
I think part of my desire to learn the ukulele is that it is simple. But really it's because of my cracked sense of humor and incessant self-deprication. There is something weird and creepy and funny about a big fat guy that looks like a biker, (the words of another of my blatantly honest high school students), playing a little stringed instrument.
Like a caricature, it is funny because it is obtuse. A little off. Just like me.
Of course, I don't play Hawaiian happy-go-lucky music on it either. The first song I learned was "Mother", by Pink Floyd; A treatise on an overbearing, overprotective mother who stifles her young boy into insanity.
Such serious pretense played on such a "happy" instrument. That, my friends is a funny juxtaposition.
Surprisingly, I have really taken to playing. I enjoy it immensely and play as often as possible. It is the only activity that can take me out of my day and put me into a place of relaxation. I will, given the chance, play for a couple hours in a sit.
I don't like playing in front of other people. I'm frequently frustrated by my inability to play and sing some more complex songs at the same time. It seems to be one or the other right now.
But I am getting better and I am still enjoying myself and I am glad that Emily bought me the instrument as a birthday present. Since I am on the mailing list for guitar center now, I see they have a sale on a mandolin. That would be fun. I figure the uke is a gateway drug to the guitar, at least. Or perhaps even the stand-up bass.
Now that's growth.
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