Category: drama

The Sound You Hear

Wait, what is that sound? Muted yet distinct. Gentle yet forceful. Repetitive percussion, steady like a metronome.

Oh, yes. Well then. That’s the sound of my forehead upon my work desk. The press board laminate feels so cool against my fevered face.

The rhythmic thumping hurts, only a little, just enough to help take my mind off the other pain. The other agony.

Maybe I’ll intersperse some groaning in there in syncopated time. Yes, that might be symphonic. Soothing. Calming.

This skull produced tintinnabulation* began just about five minutes ago. Yes, that was it. Just when my boss left my office.

Ah yes. The boss.

He’s acting a little wacky lately. Too long a story to type up here, but he’s very much trying to garner the favor of his own boss. He’s living in the US for six months and so I believe he’s decided that for the entirety of those six months he is going to tap dance upon my neck, which may delight the Big Boss and make him clap like a toddler child over a tambourine monkey.

“Do it again! hee hee!”

We’re one and a half months into this polka and I’m not having nearly as much fun as he is.

We got into a little spat earlier about a slide deck he wants my team to create for him to deliver to the Big Boss. My Boss started weaving this storyline of what he wants this deck to do, to say, to mean.

According to the line of reasoning of what he wants, my team is to deliver a PowerPoint deck that will cure hunger, give everyone in the room a mani-pedi, and make a sandwich.

It should be that magic.

That beautiful.

That perfect.

It will have pie charts more delectable than a whip cream festooned holiday pie made up of metrics we do not have.

It will show graphs with upward shooting trend lines representing successes we did not achieve.

It will have strong bullets saying profound things in only six words per line and six bullets per page.

Or better yet, tarted up with graphics like puzzle pieces forming an interlocking circle, or arrows that grow from small to big across the page. Oh! Be sure to add in lots of those fun little transitions like bullets flying in from the left side and spinning objects.

Yes, make me a deck that would take a professional slide deck maker a week working full time, do this while still doing all your other work and quit bitching about it.

Oh, and can you have it on my desk by December 1.

Yeah. *thump, thump, thump*







* Gotta love thesaurus.com

Image from Sara is Reading What blog



My How Times Have Changed (for the better)

As I usually do when it’s a quiet Friday and I’m having a little lunch at my desk and I’m missing my Fair New Mexico in ways too numerous to count, I head over to Google, hit the news tab and type in “New Mexico” to see what’s doing back home.

After wading through the politics and sports stories, I found a nice little gem today.

An article with the title: N.M.’s First Gentleman Takes a Job

I especially loved this quote:

Franco told the Journal last year that when not traveling back and forth between Las Cruces and Santa Fe, he has filled his time in the state’s capital city with volunteer activities, yardwork at the Governor’s Mansion and a rediscovered passion for painting and drawing.

Wow how times are changing in ways that are both surprising and positive. In this year’s election, a record number of women were elected to public office which means there is truly a cause to start to better define the role of the “First Gentleman.”

I’m no expert in this area, but to my recollection first ladies have often worked with charities and other groups as part of their work alongside their spouse, or they quietly step to the background and work their own lives. To read the quote from Mr. Franco it sounds about right.

It was not so long ago you would have read that exact same quote from woman when asked what she does while her husband runs the state.

Instead it’s the female Governor running the state and her husband being a stay at home guy, and now he’s picked up a part time job. Why not?

I think it’s awesome, doubly so that it’s my homestate at the front of this trend.

My fair New Mexico, a little more progressive than even I ever thought.





Source: Albuquerque Journal

Image from What Comes Around Goes Around



This

The Feline is having none of it today.

None, I say.

And neither is her human.

The day started at 5:00am and I won’t be home until about 8:00pm.

Isn’t there some platitude about the value of hard work?

To that I say:






Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5 and the Camera+ app.



Wind Sprints

If today is Halloween, that must mean tomorrow is November 1. The first day of November is not only Dia de Los Muertos, but also ushers in the annual National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.

Eight times I have successfully completed a 50,000 word story in the span of just 30 days. Last year was the first time I attempted and failed NaNo. And even in my failure, I learned a lot.

In the spirit of try, try again, I’m going to take a run at it again this year. This despite the fact that I have no story ideas and a lot of anxiety about it.

And so as an athlete stretches and runs wind sprints in order to get ready for the big game, I am going to run some wordy sprints.

With that, I turn again to Unconscious Mutterings for some random word prompts. I love this warm up.

So here we go!

  1. Crying ::

    What I will not be doing on November 30th if all goes well. That said, a good cry is cathartic and good for the soul. It might take a heavy bout of crying mid-month in the throes of writer’s block in order to break through and make it to that 50,000th word.

    It remains to be seen.


  2. Reluctant ::

    I am, truly, rather reluctant to have another go at this crazy month of writing. It’s always awesome and I’m amazed at what I can produce in so short a time. It’s also quite taxing on The Muse. I get creatively wiped out by the end of the marathon. Blisters on the brain pan or something. But it’s also quite satisfying. That mind numbing creative exhaustion means I have created something and that is the coolest feeling in the world.


  3. Decade ::

    My first go at this crazy NaNo game was back in 2004. I’m closing in on a decade of this wordy abuse. Lots of words and time well spent. By writing this blog I know my writing has improved vastly and my ability to write on the fly has grown strong. So hey, rock on.


  4. Mustache ::

    So what’s the deal with mustaches these days? They are not just facial hair anymore. Now a mustache is a meme. I mean, there are accessories, baseball logos and many Tumblrs.

    Plus, let’s just settle this right now. Rollie Fingers. Greatest mustache of all time. Boo-yah.


  5. Water ::

    Well now, not to bring down the language and mustache party, but water sure has been a topic of conversation lately, hasn’t it? Water, so life giving, so essential, so gosh darn powerful. The photos of subway stations and buildings and streets filled with water in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy are so profoundly scary and overwhelming. I know that New York and New Jersey are incredibly resilient and will bounce back. But as of today, it’s just overwhelming to witness the power and destruction of simple H2O.


  6. March ::

    Let’s see…the 2012 baseball season ended Monday. The celebration parade up Market Street in San Francisco was today. Baseball is officially over.

    World Baseball Classic begins March 2.

    *sigh*


  7. Stripes ::

    As I’m writing this, “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” is on the telly. Right now Linus is sitting in the pumpkin patch, wearing a red shirt with stripes, explaining to Sally about the Great Pumpkin.

    Then he uttered something that seemed a little meaningful here in on the last day of October and six days before the end of election season.

    “I don’t see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one. You can look around and there’s not a sign of hypocrisy. Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see.”

    Oh how I wish I could find a place, even a small pumpkin patch, where there is not a sign of hypocrisy and sincerity as far as the eye can see.

    Sadly that’s not the view from where I’m sitting. Maybe I’ll check again next week.


  8. Friendship ::

    Recently I got to spend three days with my best friend of over twenty years. She is family and brilliant and each year of our friendship means everything to me. We may live miles apart but she lives right here in my heart every day. Being with her for a few days made me actually miss her MORE than I already did.

    Time is the scarcest commodity of them all.


  9. Weirdo ::

    It’s a testament to the kind of woman she is that for over twenty years she’s put up with a weirdo like me.

    Tomorrow also brings the anniversary of the day I met The Good Man. It’s a testament to the kind of man he is that he puts up with my special brand of weird every day.

    I’m very lucky and that’s said with nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see.


  10. Contacts ::

    As this Halloween night wanes on, time to pluck the contacts from my eyes and bid adieu the season of orange and black. An ABC TV interstitial just announced it is now officially the “holiday season.”

    This makes me sad. And scared. And reluctant.

    Ok, for now, I must focus on NaNo. Freak out over the holiday season can wait until later.


Well there you have it. Whew. I’m winded and warmed up and ready to write!








Image from Soccer Skills and Training.



Admitting You Have a Problem Is The First Step

Each day at work, I spent nine to ten hours in front of a computer, looking at a screen, tip tapping away on my keyboard.

I go to lunch and while noshing I pull out my iPhone and I catch up on email, Twitter, Facebook and when that’s done, I read a couple chapters of a book on the Kindle app.

When I come home from work, I have my phone with me at all times and I check in on email, Twitter, Facebook and others. Sometimes I log into my iMac and do some writing work or I edit photos or just fiddle about. Occasionally in front of the television I’ll fire up my MacBook and I’ll do the two screen thing, telly and computer.

When I go to bed at night, I set the alarm on my phone and I do a last check of email, Twitter and Facebook and maybe read another chapter of a book on my phone.

Then I sleep. When the alarm goes off, the first thing I do is check the meetings on the day’s calendar on my phone. Then I check email, Twitter and Facebook.

Recently, I had to admit to myself that this is a problem. I spend way too much time with my head in a device.

Way, way too much.

I’ve been trying to wean off but I have to be honest, it’s hard. Those “likes” on Facebook are as addictive as pellets to a lever pushing rat. Payoff! Reward! You like me you really like me!!

While out and about with a friend a few weeks back, she commented, “You are on Facebook a lot” and my internal gears seized up. Am I really? That can’t be.

Only it is.

I was doing better (for a few days) and really making progress, but then baseball’s post-season started and it got worse. I wanted to watch the games and see what everyone was saying and see updated stats online and photos from the yard! At some points during the course of the post-season I was watching TV, Twittering on my MacBook and checking Facebook on my phone all at once.

Meaning, I slipped off the wagon and bounced a few times on the dirt road.

Last night I was thinking AGAIN about my need to back away from the shiny electronic devices. They are so alluring!

While waiting in the coffee line this morning at work, I idly browsed the local county newspaper (an actual paper copy) and came across this little ol article:

Can true solitude be found in a wired world?

I used to be that girl…I loved to sit in an airport waiting for a plane and instead of my nose in a device or even a book for that matter, I would sit, quietly, and observe the world. The sights the smells the sounds. I would hear my own thoughts. I would find a place of calm.

Not anymore. Now if I fly I make sure my iPad is loaded up with content, both books and movies to distract me the whole way and I hardly make note of anyone or anything around me. Hell, I can’t even sit quietly in my own home and listen to the squirrels fighting outside. Nope, gotta Tweet about it.

What is wrong with me? When did I get sucked in and how can I back away slowly?

I had a revelation one night last year while in the midst of twelve to fourteen hour workdays and I was losing my mind. My beloved Good Man took my phone out of my hand, went into Settings and turned off my work email.

It was like he opened my eyes for the first time. That I could really do that…I could ignore email for a few hours? Magic!

Perhaps it’s now time to turn the entire device OFF the moment I come in the front door. There is no emergency in APAC that can’t wait to the next morning. My coworkers in APAC are fairly used to this.

Or perhaps I set a time…say 8:00pm and after that the phone is off. That allows a window for emergencies from the Pacific Rim but a time of peace in my home (and mind).

I have a good friend who doesn’t work on email at night simply because his company turns off access to email every evening then turns it back on in the morning. How glorious and how sane. My employer would never do this.

To be honest, when I think about having an unwired vacation (as suggested in the article), it sounds both awesome and a little scary.

Which is a sure sign I need to implement this in my life right away.







Image from The Indian Fusion.