By SEBASTIAN DUPREE

We are the first children suckled on Atari.  A few of us remember spinning the dial back and forth on that prehistoric behemoth, Pong.  We remember the first Apple Macintosh computers, the cassette tape and vinyl record giving way to the superstar CD…and then, years later, we could actually burn our own!  Holy Shit!  What a defining moment!  We weren’t beholden to the megalithic record companies anymore, we could sit at our sleek, new computer console and put together a playlist to suit our style, burn it on a disc and pass it along.  No more mixtapes.  And now, we just put playlists together to sync to our ipod.

This generation seems so powerful and at once so impotent.  We can communicate seamlessly from nearly every patch of earth on the globe, yet the more and more the advanced we become, the more and more we retreat into our mortgaged castles to seek solace from our high-tech toys.  Which must be replaced nearly every season, because this shit moves so fast.  And who wants to be stuck with a DVD when Blu-Ray is the way to go….

It’s all perspective.  There will always be that abnormally large section of the populace who will happily fall into the trappings of the Masses of the Moment.   They will do “The Right Thing” , “The Way it Goes” and plot on predictable paths:  college, securing of job/career, securing of spouse, securing of mortgage, reproduction of children.  The circle goes round and round.  Each generation breeds its next.  And it makes perfect sense.

Parents undoubtedly want the best for their children.  They want them normal.  Faced with little to no risk, discomfort, ostricizment or humiliation.  This is natural, instinctual.  Give them a solid foundation and let them live out their lives the way they see fit.  Yes, that is good.  But where are the heroes?

Each generation must build on the last; must take away the good laid down by the previous, mold it to its proper usefulness to the present, and do away with the archaic, the old ways that no longer seem valid and must be put down like a rabid dog.  This happens generation after generation, age after age.

So what happens to the Touch of Humanity?  Can it come from Facebook updates or down at the corner church on Sundays?  Where, and when, will this generation learn that we are all inter-connected?  There is a powerful urge flowing through the souls of us all.  There is an unquenched desire to find out who we are, our place in this world.

Why is this question relegated almost to myth?  The end-all, be-all, big-ass question of it All?  Is it still being chased by a few wandering souls?  Can it be found on a personal day now and again and one vacation a year?  Do some find it in an all-inclusive resort in a safe, gated section of a Caribbean island?

The world is a beautiful place and worth dying for, said a famous bearded American writer, now dead.  So, who will chant those words as they set out to see for themselves?  Where are their words?  May they come soon…may they come soon….

So there are two books of the Bible that are the readings for this time. The interesting thing is that the Bible is no included as one of the Great Books. But here is what editor-in-chief Robert Maynard Hutchins says about that in his introduction.“Readers who are startled to find the Bible omitted from the set will be reassured to learn that this was done only because Bibles are already widely distributed, and it was felt unnecessary to bring another, by way of this set, into homes that had several already. References to the Bible are, however, included in both the King James and the Douai versions under the appropriate topics in the Syntopicon.”

The Syntopicon is made up of two volumes in the set designed to help people find readings about various topics. It is sort of a set-wide index. Hutchins wrote this in 1951. I wonder how things have changed over the years and whether or not Bibles are as widely distributed and whether it would make sense to include them in a modern day set.  

 I have the King James version and will base my readings and post on that. If you happen to comment please mention which version you are using.

3 cups flour

It seems that the older I get, and the more time I put into this ‘adult’ thing, the less invested (interested?) in food I become.  I find myself growing increasingly tired with the banal necessity of having to constantly think about what to eat, when to eat it, when to go to the grocery store, etc. ad nauseum.

1 ½ tsp salt

Which is not to say that I don’t like cooking – in fact, I love cooking, particularly the bits involving knives.  I just find it tiresome.  Boring even.  Obviously modern life & being busy & & & are factors but mainly I’m just weary of the fact that my body needs to be fed so very often.  As delicious as it may be, I don’t really want to talk about dinner all of the time, you know?

¼ tsp instant yeast

Hence, somewhat paradoxically, why I like baking so much.  Yes, baking is time and following-directions intensive, but when one’s done baking one doesn’t need to bake whatever it is that one has just baked for some days.  There’s also a certain beauty to the mixing of strange, often bone-dry & seemingly unfood, ingredients (this essay’s section titles = THIS) & having them      ¡voila!      emerge as…bread?

1 5/8 cups warm water

E.G.: sautéing an onion pales in comparison to baking.  An onion – though far more palatable once chopped & cooked – still looks like onion after it sits on a hot thing in some oil for awhile.  But yeast?  Yeast is a living thing.  Yeast is magical pixie dust which transforms flour – itself an ancient source of human dominance – into something fit for sandwiches, something which has crust, something which can, for a few days at least, somewhat settle that question of those many meals.

-Kevin O’Rourke

Is it neighbor boys

playing—or steroidal mice

raging in the walls?

Just where the sound dies

a woman’s voice wails and you

wonder if it’s song.

I was seduced.

I was pressured into doing it.

I was looking for you.

I wanted to feel connected to the person.

I wanted to feel closer to God.

It was a favour to someone.

It seemed like good exercise.

I wanted to be popular.

I was afraid to say ‘no’ due to the possibility of physical harm.

I wanted to show my affection to the person.

I wanted the person to love me.

I felt like I owed it to the person.

I wanted to say ‘goodbye’.

I wanted to make a conquest.

I wanted to hurt an enemy.

I wanted to get rid of aggression.

I wanted to get rid of a headache.

I wanted to get a raise.

I wanted to get a raise.

I wanted to change the topic of conversation.

I was afraid to say no.

I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

I wanted to intensify my relationship.

I wanted to give someone a sexually transmitted disease (e.g. Herpes, Aids).

I wanted to celebrate something.

I felt like it was my duty.

I realised I was in love.

I love you.

I love you.

Someone dared me.

I think we’re at the

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

(Each line was a junk mail message header that arrived in my inbox over a few days in 2008)

We in New Zealand have Ian Wishart. Ian doesn’t reply to any of my correspondences, which indicates either mistaken identity or I really did get through to him once. But rabid Christian fundamentalist or not, Ian often makes very good sense and his ‘Investigate‘ Magazine is well worth the perusing next time you’re in Whitties or P’ Plus.

Jesus aside, Ian cheerfully and effectively lifts the lid on other scams and opens many Cans Of Worms. His investigative reporting is effectively peerless and I thought his ‘Air Con‘ definitive. But now I find that the blasted Australians have one of their own, a scientific chap called Ian Plimer.

Plimer’s primer on Global Warming is well covered in the article I’m about to be quoting from—

http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/3755623/part_6/meet-the-man-who-has-exposed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml

… Besides which, Australia’s economy is peculiarly vulnerable to the effects of climate change alarmism. ‘Though we have 40 per cent of the world’s uranium, we don’t have nuclear energy. We’re reliant mainly on bucketloads of cheap coal. Eighty per cent of our electricity is coal-generated and clustered around our coalfields are our aluminium producers. The very last thing the Australian economy needs is the cap and trade legislation being proposed by Kevin Rudd. If it gets passed, the country will go broke.’ … “

In view of the knife-edge political situation over there in Ozz at the moment this remark is remarkably prescient. Ol’ Ian never offered us anything as interesting as total governmental collapse/implosion, but I’ve still not finished his book yet (blasted leaked ’scientific’ e-mails took my mind off my books).

” … Not for one second does Plimer believe it will get passed. As with its US equivalent the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill, Kevin Rudd’s Emission Trading Scheme legislation narrowly squeaked its way through the House of Representatives. But again as in America, the real challenge lies with the upper house, the Senate. Thanks in good measure to the influence of Plimer and his book — ‘I have politicians ringing me all the time’ — the Senate looks likely to reject the bill. If it does so twice, then the Australian government will collapse, a ‘double dissolution’ will be forced and a general election called. ‘Australia is at a very interesting point in the climate change debate,’ says Plimer … “

A nice wishful thought but one never knows. I’m surprised at how often in life and history so-called clever men line up for the shotgun, patiently awaiting their turn to blow their own toes off (aaah, human nature, where would we be without it?).

” … queuing up to impose ever more stringent carbon emissions targets and taxes on their hapless electorates … in the days when most people felt rich enough to absorb these extra costs and guilty enough to think they probably deserved them, the politicians could get away with it … … Reading Plimer’s Heaven And Earth is at once an enlightening and terrifying experience. Enlightening because, after 500 pages of heavily annotated prose (the fruit of five years’ research), you are left in no doubt that man’s contribution to the thing they now call ‘climate change’ was, is and probably always will be negligible. Terrifying, because you cannot but be appalled by how much money has been wasted, how much unnecessary regulation drafted because of a ‘problem’ that doesn’t actually exist …”

Obviously the writer hasn’t considered the ’so what?’ factor. (Bugger, I think I’ve just formalised a new thingy in current English) — the ’so what?’ factor refers to the human inability to adapt to change, as in the honoured:

“You cannot stop an idea whose time has come”

Drake may well have continued his game of bowls but these days we need move faster in response to genuine threats—and Drake also then went out and kicked their little Spanish butts (we just roll over and whimper, a la ostrich).

” … Does he really believe his message will ever get through? Plimer smiles. ‘If you’d asked any scientist or doctor 30 years ago where stomach ulcers come from, they would all have given the same answer: obviously it comes from the acid brought on by too much stress. All of them apart from two scientists who were pilloried for their crazy, whacko theory that it was caused by a bacteria. In 2005 they won the Nobel prize. The “consensus” was wrong … ”

” … His name is Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at Adelaide University, and he has recently published the landmark book Heaven And Earth, which is going to change forever the way we think about climate change … “

No—

# only some people will buy the book,

# only some of them will read it,

# and of those who do

# only some will try to do anything meaningful.

I guess the writer is hyperbolising. (I do it too sometimes. Oodles. Lots. Millions of times a week. Emissions taxes? I guess we’re stuck with them. Get used to it, even if it’s all a crock …

KISMET

I love you, but your breath tastes like an ash tray

Deal breakers.  Come on, we all have them.  

No matter how accepting and genuine you aspire to be, there will always be that tiny little grating detail about someone that spoils them for you, whether you’re single and looking, or in a relationship and just happen to be momentarily fascinated by someone on the subway, for whatever reason.  

They’re sitting across from you and you think, “Now that’s an attractive person,” and every so often, you non-creepily glance at them for the better part of the ride.  And then they turn around and you spot an unsightly mole on the back of their neck.  You non-creepily follow them outside and watch them light up a smoke, and you do not date smokers.  Ever.  They’re carrying a Louis Vuitton-wearing pooch in a little purse.  They walk into Hooters.  Aaaaaaaaaaaand there goes your fun.  They’re spoiled.

Inspired by an episode of a How I Met Your Mother episode of the same name, here are some other “spoiler alerts,” real or imagined.  But mostly real.  

• “I thought you were attractive until you opened your mouth” (this is a pretty common one)
• “You seemed pretty cute, sitting there reading that gigantic tome on the bus.  A fellow bookworm.  And then I saw that you were reading Harry Potter.  Now, not so cute”
• “You were a cool and original person until I saw you shopping un-ironically at American Apparel”
• “You seemed so awesome until I received an e-mail from you and you spelled ‘you’re’ like ‘your’”
• “You were hot until I heard you listening to Rihanna on your iPod”
• “I thought we could be the best of friends … and then I saw Twilight listed as your favourite book on Facebook. The BFF position is now closed”
• “You seemed attractive from the back … but then you turned around and you’re wearing a Leafs jersey”

How about you, blogosphere?  What are some of your deal breakers and spoiler alerts?  What tiny detail about a stranger makes you not want to date them or cease to think they’re attractive?  And don’t feel superficial because we all do it.  Some of us just don’t like admitting it.

A woman was not born with a duster in one hand and a pan in the other, nor do we have “MUG” tattooed on our forehead just after the nurse gives us a good slap.

There will always be dust. Dont sweat it!

If you tidy up as you go along a weekly blitz will be easier HOWEVER….you are not there to tidy alone (unless you live on your own). Get others to do their bit. If they don’t do their fair share, don’t try to reason with them, it won’t work! Reasoning never works when it comes to housework.

Just show them this:

What if every dog

walked itself, dragging masters

to places for pee?

Every once in a blue moon I’d go shopping (only because I have to) and am instantly reminded of how much I dislike it these days. Shopping of any kind. Clothes, accessories, grocery, furniture, appliances, sometimes even books. Yes, you heard that right. All the driving, parking, walking. Trolley pushing, clothes trying, card swiping. My head spinning, eyes darting, brain whirring. Oh. So. Daunting!

And that was just shopping for myself. I had a vision of me in 10 years time, with a few kids in tow, dragging through the mall twice a week, 3 hours each time, just for food and other necessities; and felt nauseous. How do others do it?

Even ordering things online takes time and is rather stressful. I may have to pack up and go live in a village. We could raise chickens, grow veggies, weave fabric, make clothes, and get wireless internet.

~jet~

To all my American friends, I wish you a Happy and Peaceful Thanksgiving.

‘A few Zzzzzs’

Hi.  I am a list maker.

Sounds like the opening of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

I find lists help me to organize and prioritize all sorts of things.  I make shopping lists.  I make lists of tasks at the office.  I make gift lists.  I have my kids make lists: of their holiday gift wishes, their friends’ names and phone numbers.

Lists help me remember.  Lists allow me to go along through life without feeling that I have to memorize every spare detail.  If I write things down, I don’t have to memorize them.  I used to think I had a good memory.

One aside is that my nickname at home is the “Find-inator,” like the Terminator, but for locating lost or misplaced objects.  Part of that is based on an ability to remember visual details; the other part is more about what the Cat in the Hat called “Calculatus Eliminatus”—the process of finding something by finding “where it’s not.”

In retrospect, I realize that my memory is nothing special — I was just good at keeping track of my lists.  Let me be clear: I forget a lot of things.  Things that don’t resonate or strike me as important don’t go into the brain’s hard drive. Like many guys, I find it hard to recall what someone wore to a particular occasion.  I don’t remember the food unless it was something extra-special.

I wouldn’t characterize my list-making as obsessive.  A few years ago, I worked with a young woman who was.  She was a local girl from upstate New York with aspirations of being a Rock singer.  I never heard her sing, but she dressed the part: pale skin, blond hair, black roots, dark eye-shadow with a thick Longuh Eyeland accent.  We sat near each other, and between phone calls, she worked on her legal pads.  A yellow page would be covered margin-to-margin, every line with words.  So many words.  Pages and pages of words.  It looked serious…very serious. What did it all mean? Was it a treatise on modern office life?  A book manuscript?

After a few weeks, my curiosity could no longer be ignored, and I asked about the notes.  The answer was very simple: “It’s just my tuh doose.  See, I write down all of my projects and all the related phone numbers and activities, and then as I go through my day, I mark them out with a line.  Then the next day I recopy what is left.”

I was incredulous: “So you rewrite the pages every day?”

“Yeah, how else could I keep up with what I have to do?”

That’s different strokes for different folks, but it seemed to me that her day was 50 percent activity and 50 percent rewriting her notes to herself.  She was always busy, but imagine what she could have accomplished during all those hours of meticulous notes?

Exercising Your Priorities

Lists can be overwhelming.  Simply compiling a decent, comprehensive list is can chore in itself, but one worth completing.

To do lists need priorities.  Here’s an exercise.  Take some time and write out a bulleted list of things you need to do.  Make a complete list.  Place completion dates by each task.

Don’t worry if your list reaches a full page or longer.

Now number each task.  Look at the list and work through the priorities.  Which are the most important tasks?

Think about chronology.  What has to be done before others can happen?  Is one task contingent upon completion of another?  Assign new numbers accordingly.

Look at the list again.  Place the tasks in order of importance and/or by chronology.

Now — if the list is a page or longer, tear it in half. You heard me…tear the list in half. Just do it.

Now tear the half in half.  The remaining list should be no more than 4 or 5 tasks.  This is what you can reasonably expect to accomplish in a day or two.

On another page make another list of things that you want to do.  Prioritize and order them as well.

Pick one thing you want to do but haven’t, and add that to your new and improved (smaller) to do list.

Try this for two weeks.  For me, it was a revelation.  I got things done, knew that I was tackling the important things first or at least enabling future (more important) goals by knocking off minor ones along the way.  When I finished something on the list, I felt good.

If you accept this challenge, I’d love to hear how it went for you…

Thousands of documents stolen from the University of East Anglia in the UK appear to show that climate change data has been manipulated, on both sides of the Atlantic,  in order to strengthen the case that global warming is the result of human activity.  According to a recent article  in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, data actually shows that global temperatures are declining.  The article says:

“In one email Professor Phil Jones, director of the University’s respected Climatic Research Unit, referred to a ‘trick’ he applied to raw data to ‘hide the decline’ in global temperatures.”

Another article quotes extracts of email exchanges, clearly never intended to be seen by the public:

From: Kevin Trenberth (US National Center for Atmospheric Research). To: Michael Mann (Pennsylvania State University). Oct 12, 2009
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t… Our observing system is inadequate”

Prof Trenberth appears to accept a key argument of global warming sceptics – that there is no evidence temperatures have increased over the past 10 years.

And …

From: Phil Jones. To: Many. March 11, 2003
“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”

Prof Jones appears to be lobbying for the dismissal of the editor of Climate Research, a scientific journal that published papers downplaying climate change.

And maybe the most telling…

From Phil Jones. To: Michael Mann (Pennsylvania State University). Date: May 29, 2008
“Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise.”

Climate change sceptics tried to use Freedom of Information laws to obtain raw climate data submitted to an IPCC report known as AR4. The scientists did not want their email exchanges about the data to be made public.

……………………..

There are now calls for a public inquiry over data manipulation claims.

I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions on this.  If you’ve been visiting here a while, you probably already have a good idea of how I feel about it.

Last Saturday I went to the Kunsthal for an exhibition of paintings by Edward Hopper. I really like his work, so the chance to see originals in my home town, Rotterdam, I could not let got to waste! This is what I learned…

About Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper (1882 – 1967) studied commercial art from 1899 – 1900 at the Correspondence School of Illustration, and after that until 1906 at the New York School of Art. He was employed as an illustrator and commercial artist in New York. He took time off for visits to Paris and to travel through Europe. He held his first solo exhibition at the Whitney Studio Club in 1920, where he also attended evening drawing classes in 1923. After a successful exhibition in 1924 he decided to quit working as a commercial artist. He married  Josephine Nevison , also a painter, in the same year. From then on she was nearly always his primary female model. Hopper received numerous distinctions during his career. In 1945 he was elected to the National Institute of Art and Letters. In 1952 he was selected to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale.

About Edward Hopper’s paintings

American modern art at the beginning of the twentieth century has been associated in Europe with one artist in particular: Edward Hopper. Hopper’s work is characterized by empty streets and landscapes, desolate buildings and by solitary figures in an urban setting. The places depicted in his paintings continue to shape our image of America.

About the exhibition

The Modern Life exhibition. Edward Hopper and His Time presents highlights of eight Hopper top works together with more than ninety masterpieces from the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York  in the spacious daylight hall of the Kunsthal. For the first time ever works by Edward Hopper are shown in the context of their time. The exhibition also includes works by famous artists like Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, Man Ray, Lyonel Feininger, Grant Wood and Alfred Stieglitz. The exhibition presents through paintings, works on paper, sculptures and photographs an imposing impression of the developments in modern art in America and puts the works of Hopper in a new light. The exhibition is organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art on the occasion of the 400^th anniversary of New York. (1609 – 2009)

The Kunsthal is both on the inside as on the outside a striking building, which was designed in 1992 by famous Rotterdam architect Rem Koolhaas. With more than 3300 square metres of exhibition space and some 25 exhibitions a year, it is worthwhile to pay a visit anytime. The exhibition Modern Life – Edward Hopper and His Time runs until January 17, 2010.

For more information about the Kunsthal you can visit it’s website www.kunsthal.nl

A locomotive

then cars, then—half-way through—

remembering to count.

Do Joon-suh and Eun-suh know they are not brother and sister? How will Shin-ae feel, stumbling upon the truth while tussling over a teddy bear? What goes through Eun-Suh’s mind as she enters her new life of abject poverty?

Does Joon-suh, now a successful artist, know that Tae-sok has fallen in love with Eun-suh, who works as a telephone receptionist? How will Eun-suh cope with meeting Joon-suh on the beach, where he walks with his fiancée Yumi?

Why does Eun-suh not tell anyone she has leukaemia? How stricken must Joon-Suh feel, as he carries her corpse along the shore where they played as teenagers? Why does he not follow Eun-suh’s advice to live on, but instead get run over by a truck?

The bead pauses

before she lifts her arm, so

it joins the others.

Do Joon-suh and Eun-suh know they are not brother and sister? How will Shin-ae feel, happening on the truth while tussling over a teddy bear? What goes through Eun-Suh’s mind as she enters a life of abject poverty?

Does Joon-suh, now an artist, know that Tae-sok has fallen in love with Eun-suh, who works as a telephone receptionist? How will Eun-suh cope with meeting Joon-suh on the beach, where he walks with his fiancée Yumi?

Why does Eun-suh not tell anyone she has leukemia? How stricken must Joon-Suh feel, as he carries her corpse along the shore where they played as teenagers? Why does he not follow Eun-suh’s advice to live on, but instead gets run over by a truck?

A finger drags water

from the spill and it dwindles,

dwindles, dries.

One of the most value gifts you can give someone is your attention.  Think about the people you know that always seem the most popular.  They are the people who light up a room, who are well-liked and most personable.  Among other traits, most of them have one thing in common: they are good listeners.  What does that really mean?

Being a good listener means your attention is absolutely focused on the person in front of you, engaging fully.  Attention is like a mirror: you are presenting back to the speaker your absorption in what they are saying.  People love to talk about themselves and about their opinions.  When they have your complete attention, even for a short while, they come away feeling that you valued their comments and that even if you disagree, at least you let them present their story, viewpoint or observations. By extension, they come away feeling valued by you.

When your attention waivers, people notice.  They shut down because you are sending them a message that you don’t value their time.  In its essence, lack of attention boils down to this— as the Warden in the movie “Cool Hand Luke” said, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”  Perhaps some examples might help at this point.

True Life Scenario No. 1: Revolving door office

You stop by an office-mate’s desk to share an idea.  You tell him it will only take two minutes.  He welcomes you in, but leaves the door open.  As you begin to speak, a person comes to the door and interrupts with a minor question.  Your office-mate stops to answer.  It only takes two minutes.  Then you begin again.

After two minutes, another person stops by with some papers to sign.  Your office-mate reads and signs the paper.  You begin again.  The phone rings.  Your office-mate answers.  It’s just a short call, about two minutes.

Then you begin again.  Then the office-mate’s email signals an incoming message.  He turns to his computer, reads the email.  It only takes a minute or two.  You begin again.  It’s now about ten minutes since you arrived for your two-minute chat.  You’ve restarted the conversation three or four times.  Mental note to email the office-mate instead of trying meet with him.  A week he later asks you why you haven’t stopped by to chat lately.

Has this happened to you?

What to do:

Devote your attention to the person speaking, whether it’s face-to-face or on the phone or in a conference.  In all these moments, you are there because you need to be.  Someone needs to tell you something valuable and they want you to absorb it, process it and sometimes to act on the topic.  It may be because YOU need to tell THEM something that they need to absorb and act upon.  So be polite, but close the door or turn to the person interrupting and ask if they can wait just a bit for you to finish your business.  Say it with a smile.  It’s not rude; it’s efficient use of time.

True Life Scenario No. 2: Trapped with the Boss

You get a call from the Boss.  “Please come upstairs to review the coming month’s projects.  Bring your folders.”  You grab your folders and go up to his penthouse office.  You take seat in front of his chic Art Deco desk and begin to review the materials.  The phone rings.  It’s his assistant with an important call.

You rise to leave, but he waves you back into your seat.  It will only take a few minutes.  As the call spirals out into different subjects, you attempt to maintain a demeanor of nonchalance—you’re not really paying attention or eaves-dropping on his phone call.  The call goes on and on. It’s a sunny day. Oh look, a bird flew by.

You attempt to leave again, mouthing “I’ll come back later.” He waves you back to your seat.  Almost done.  You re-read the materials, page by page.  You trace the woodwork with your eyes. You notice that one corner of the wallpaper, way up high, is coming unstuck.

He hangs up the phone and you look at your watch.  It’s been 45 minutes and you have not even spoken an entire sentence.  He has to leave for a lunch with a board member.  The meeting will have to be rescheduled.

When the rescheduled meeting takes place, he chides you for not meeting with him sooner.  You write a short story imagining his murder.

What to do:

When the important call comes, go ahead and leave the room.  Speak to the assistant and ask that you be called when the boss is really free to meet with you.

True Life Scenario No. 3: Emergency Solitaire

The company is in crisis.  It has just lost a crucial and lucrative piece of business–lost its biggest client.  The company might go under.  The executive team calls an emergency “all hands on deck” Saturday seminar meeting to save the company.  It’s the most important work you’ve been asked to do.  You prepare a brief PowerPoint presentation with ideas for new directions to pursue for new business.

The seminar is packed.  The 30 top executives of the company are on hand, as well as the genius founder.  “How we got here,” “What can we do now?” and “Where we’re going” are the mandates of the day.  Everyone understands the stakes.  This is a make-it-or-break-it moment.  The air is electrified.

During the morning session, you notice a colleague across the table intently working on her Palm Pilot.  It seems that she’s capturing everything, taking complete notes.  After lunch you change your seat and move next to her, thinking that she must be generating fabulous ideas to help save the company.

The meeting resumes.  Your colleague whips out her Palm Pilot again and begins again…to intently play Solitaire.  That’s what she’s been doing all day.  The next week several people comment to you that they saw her playing Solitaire and how disappointed they were.  You keep the comments to yourself. The company goes under anyway. The Solitaire-playing colleague jumps to the departing client. You join some coworkers at another firm, life goes on.

What to do:

It’s simple—turn off or at least silence cell phones during meetings, any meetings.  If you do it in movie theaters and you can do it for PEOPLE.

Do not surf the Web or fiddle with your computer or cell phone during meetings. If your instant messenger, your Twitter feed or your email signals you that “you’ve got mail” — just ignore it.

Another way to give better attention is to turn away from distractions like a TV or computer screen.  If you have a swivel monitor, rotate it away from view.  Or move your computer screen to a less obtrusive place.

Who knows, you may find that YOU get more out of meetings too.

PS: In future posts we’ll talk more about active listening skills and Feng Shui for your office.

Working from home…

modern communication - after the internet

Download the free illustration here

When you’re young you have this image of your life,
That you’ll be scrupulous and one day even make a wife.
And you make boundaries you’d never dream to cross,
And if you happen to, you wake completely lost

–lyrics from “Special Two” by Missy Higgins

***

In 5 years I’ll be 29.

Right now 29 feels like this magical age–an age that conjures images of freshly cut tulips, brownstone apartments, a vague and not-too-stressful media job, and an adorable little dog named Nino scampering down the leafy path of a gorgeous Queen or King West park.  

Last night I started thinking about what I wanted from life.  As I tried to drift off to sleep, rather than playing my usual Alphabet Game that helps calm a busy mind (here’s how you play: pick a topic and then go through the alphabet, thinking of a word that starts with each letter. Don’t think too hard though, or you’ll only make your mind busier!), I began to play that game I never play called Five Years From Now … Game, causing me to wonder what it really is that I want, hope for, and dream about, and if these hopes are useful in helping me achieve things or if they’re airy wishes which disappear in the cold air like dandelion fluff.

Five, six, seven years ago, I dreamed some pretty big dreams.  Like most kids about to embark on that scary, exciting venture of post-secondary education and “officially” becoming an adult, still sheltered by the loving arms of my supportive parents, I believed in the possibility of my wildest dreams.  I was going to get my education.  Be a professor.  Visit orphanages in Romania and maybe come back with an orphan.  Start my own magazine for teen girls specializing in healthy self-esteem and body image.  Give talks about eating disorders and self respect.  Sing in a band.  Travel extensively and then write about my experiences for a popular magazine column.  Have a successful writing career including poetry, fiction, children’s books, magazine and newspaper columns, and movie screenplays.  Entertain an eclectic group of friends and handsome gentleman in my spacious attic apartment in an old, yet well-kept Victorian home somewhere close to downtown Toronto (I believe the area I was thinking of was the Annex, but I didn’t know it at the time).  Get married.  Have a couple kids.  Live the life.  Very specific, I know, but I’m a writer and think in detail.  Can you blame me?

What happened?  I’m 24 and I’m an intern, living in my sister’s apartment, not sure where I’ll be in a month or what my situation will look like.  Which is not to say that I’m unsatisfied with where life has taken me and ungrateful for everyone’s support, because as my boyfriend always says, “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,” but I wonder where those dreams went.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to stop thinking about my future in such grandiose ways, shedding a sense of entitlement with the reality that putting too much stock in these fantasies can only result in disappointment and ungratefulness.  This is why I rarely play the Five Years From Now … Game.  

I’m in this awkward middle place between feeling insignificant, underqualified, talentless, and anxious about the future, and staying positive, continuing to dream dreams, believing in the impossible, and trusting my future with God.  Admittedly, some days are much better than others.  

I suppose a lot of my dreams have stayed along the same lines with some minor modifications.  Here’s a visual representation of my current dreams. 

Please tread softly.

Is it weird that the first thing I think about when I think of the future is puppies?  Or a hypoallergenic kitty so my family members can still come visit me?  That before relationships, career, living arrangements, I think of dogs?  That I can think of no bliss quite like sitting on a couch with a good book and a hot cup of tea or a novel being written on my laptop and a cute animal curled up at my side?  If you know how much of an animal lover I am, and how dogs make me go insane with their cuteness, then this should come as no surprise.

apartment story

I’ll leave the large house with the white picket fence to the dreams of others.  I’ve never wanted the magazine-perfect modern house with 5 rooms and 2.5 bathrooms.  Even many years ago, I wanted the apartment.  Ever since I read Margaret Atwood’s deliciously addictive The Edible Woman, I’ve wanted to live in the city, in an attic apartment on the top story of a Victorian house on a quiet, tree-lined street just a few minutes away from the heart of the city.  It’s always been the city, never the small town or the country.  The city is where it’s at, and where I want to be.  Toronto.  The Annex, Trinity Bellwoods, Leslieville, Bayview/Davisville, High Park, Roncesvalles.  They’ll all suffice.  Heck, I’d even take Hamilton if I really, really have to.  But no question, it’s got to be the city.  My dream apartment is spacious and sunny with eclectic, colourful furniture, an old-fashioned bathtub with the little brass feet, hardwood floors, bright colours, art on the walls, a tiny yet functional kitchen (I’m not much for cooking!), a bedroom with space enough for a queen-sized bed, plenty of room for all my books, sloping ceilings, ideally a cute little porch for reading and breakfasting.  And by myself.  I could definitely live well on my own for a couple years and long for this.

I would be lying to you–and myself–if I told you I didn’t want to get married someday.  Opinions on people who get married really young (ahem Christians, ahem small townies ahem), and the fact that in the city, people tend to put their careers first and as a result, end up getting married much later aside, I do want to get married at some point.  It’s something I’ve wanted since I was a little girl and hey, I’m a freaking romantic!  Even though I’m now one of the only people in my grade school graduating class that isn’t married and/or a parent, a point that makes me both embarrassed and causes me to roll my eyes (I went to a Dutch Christian Reformed School, so what do you expect?), I can’t ignore the little tune in my head that sometimes goes “dum dum dum DUM! dum DUM dum DUM!” 

I’ll he honest with you: it’s an area of my life which requires major trust in that thing called “God’s perfect timing.”

gotta raise 'em right!

Babies.  I’m divided on this issue.  I’ve always wanted to be a mom, but feel kind of guilty admitting that because by city standards, I’m still a baby myself.  Back home, where many friends/acquaintances are popping out the babies like nobody’s business, I’m practically an old maid.  It’s weird.  Some days I see bratty, wailing dictator/demons with perpetually snotty noses and ear-piercing shrieks on the streetcar and I’m like, Heeeeelllllllllll no!  I value my sleep, my sanity, and my independent life far too much to have it ruined by a spoiled little urchin.  Other days, I see these adorable little bundles of cooing, angelic, pint-sized goodness and my biological clock starts ticking loudly.

In any event, I’m probably becoming an aunt today and can barely contain my excitement!

the keys go tacka-tacka-tacka-tacka

 A full-time writing career.  This has not changed since I was 3.  As to what form this takes, I’m pretty flexible.  I’m working on it.  It’s a never ending process, and one that has not just magically materialized.  It actually takes work to find a career.  

Here are some more images which, in some way, relate to my dreams, however abstract: