2000-11-17
feeling kinda
we had a send off party last night for one of the guys from the office who is moving on to greener pastures, and i'm thinking now i really should have stayed. sweetie and i had plans to go to a breast cancer research fundraiser last night, so i bagged out of the party and met up with him. unfortunately, it's his turn to be sick. i suppose i could have motivated to go with rob, and catch the fashion show/auction, but at that point i was pretty well settled and wanted to do what i could to help out my honey. plus there was Chinese food. 8) it would have been cool to see how they set up the catwalk and all; they got space at The Milky Way in Jamaica Plain, which is a combination nov�au pizza place, art gallery, bar, dance floor and bowling alley - which makes for a pretty quirky setting. ah well. next time.
before i left the going away f�te, tho, i chatted up the DJ - one of our local radio stations was doing a promo night for music and beer. i pointed out our party boy and asked the DJ just to say something like 'best of luck'. beware boys with microphones... the DJ decided to have some fun with it, and came over just before i left to talk to our honoree. apparently they were going to be doing all kinds of goofy games involving balloons and Etch-a-Sketches, and J, by virtue of being pointed out, was about to become a major player. and i really wish i had seen the rest of the night, especially after JRS regaled me with the one about the game of 'choke the chicken'.
now, before your minds take up residence in the gutter (c'mon, admit it - you were gonna go there), this game involved a rubber chicken. essentially, it was musical chairs with a chicken. everyone stood in two lines, back to back, the chicken got handed around the circle, and the person left holding the chicken when the music stopped was eliminated from that round. JRS and L were standing next to each other from the start, and they worked out a pretty smooth passing technique. so they were the final two contestants. picture this: JRS has about 6 inches and a few pounds on L. L has to hand the chicken over his head and JRS's shoulder; JRS has to make the handoff, bend down, and pass the chicken between his legs. L has to make the handoff, and around we go. i'm imagining it looked sort of like a battle of the sippy birds (remember the glass sippy birds you'd balance on the edge of the glass? and they always had red hats). JRS was telling me about this in the hall today, and people kept getting completely the wrong idea as they caught bits and pieces of the story. as it turns out, L ended up winning, as he bumped into JRS pretty hard and nearly knocked him over. imagine that - two guys bumping ass playing choke the chicken. 8) just doesn't sound right, does it?
had a long working lunch today with a friend to plan out a marketing strategy for the board (non-profit group for which i am the marketing diva). it was a great session, not the least because he treated for lunch, calling it a contribution to the board. he's got a lot of background in positioning product, having run a few of his own companies. the tips about identifying the target group and breaking in slowly were highly practical and detailed, albeit from a cheese perspective (one of his companies is a cheese maker), but presented in a way that was pretty portable between objectives. and he's also coming at the board from a very different angle. one of the reasons i value teamwork is that presenting my ideas to other people makes it more tangible and analyzable (is that a word?); the other reason is that it's very easy to get blindered about any topic with which you've been closely involved for any length of time. talking with others will always turn up at least one new angle you might never have tripped across otherwise.
i had to scribble everything down since i seem to have a mind like a steel trap these days - rusted open. people, i haven't taken that many notes since lecture hall. whew. round two comes tomorrow, after i've had a chance to pull together some plans, and i meet up with a few other good souls willing to pitch in. remind me again why i didn't take two steps back when they asked for volunteers? 8)
scariest thing i've seen in ages: inside the back cover of my desk dictionary is an easy reference index table. the entries go something like this: Letter A - Page 1; Letter B - Page 49... you get the idea. um... yeah. if you need help mastering alphabetical order, i'm not sure you're ready to be licensed for unsupervised dictionary use.
very unusual for me, the whole weekend is booked up. appointments and work straight thru tomorrow, errands and a few appointments sunday, and back on the hamster wheel bright and early monday morning. i'm going to get my hair cut at 9:30 AM tomorrow. and it takes me an hour to get there (public transportation is handy, but not exactly speedy). this will give you an idea of how desparate i am to get my hair cut, as i am most definitely *not* a morning person. you know when your hair gets to that almost-grown-out-but-not-quite-and-i-can't-do-a-thing-with-it stage? where you're really tempted to cut it yourself if you can't get an appointment? or let your friend with the clippers just shave it all off? or dunk you head in a vat of Nair? that's where my hair is these days. it's just a little too long to behave, and not quite long enough to gel down or tuck back. you know it's bad when looking in the mirror in the morning just makes you want to scream.
speaking of looking in the mirror... the elevators in our building have brass doors, which are pretty highly polished. i've noticed that if i get in the elevator by myself, i end up making faces at myself, or having little conversations with my reflection... no wonder i'm fly paper for freaks. there might be those who see me as a kindred soul.
