Amateur Perfectionist Lessons

In the grand scheme of things, it's pretty easy to bang out a blog post. Nothing in particular to talk about? No problem! I believe this will be my 1,058th post about nothing in particular. It's a topic dear to my heart.

Much more difficult is writing about something - any actual, you know, thing - and, moreover, writing carefully about it. Putting together a first draft. Getting feedback. Revising. Fine-tuning. Revising some more.

At this point in my development as a writer, the revision process feels like this:


Damn it! I just remembered I clean forgot to ask my professor what his take is on double-spacing after a period.

Meanwhile, we had some drama in my other class, at a different institution, neither of which for these purposes I think I'll name in any searchable fashion. An email went out to all the students Friday. My professor, stating it had nothing to do with any of us in the class, was resigning as instructor of record. More details would be given at the next class meeting, if not sooner.

This was rather abrupt.

Being about one degree (if that) removed from high school students, we were excitedly abuzz about this development as the classroom filled today. What happened? Did our professor get fired? Leave in a (Chevy) Huff? How did we feel about the instructional style, anyway? Was there a lack of clear direction? Were the lectures productive?

You would think the presence of an unfamiliar, older person near the back of the room would shut us up. But perhaps lulled into security by having already accepted my middle-aged person into their midst, my fellow students gossiped away.

Eventually the stranger moved to the front of the room and distributed business cards, revealing himself to be the chair of our missing professor's department. "I see you've already heard the news," he said, with a certain sense of irony (irony not being an unfamiliar concept, I wouldn't think, to anyone in his particular field).

I don't know that we were particularly chastened, though we probably should have been. The department head asked if any of us had any notion of our professor's imminent departure, and asked to be forwarded a copy of the email suddenly announcing it. We meekly accepted the assignment of a new professor, under the assumption that what we were getting was at least as good and possibly better than what we'd had. But I have a pang for the departed professor, whom I'd liked. Class started a few days earlier here than it did in my writing class (my writing/Shakespeare professor having been summoned to jury duty), so this was my first face-to-face encounter with the return to academia. It matters to me. It's special! I hope all is well.

But if not, I hope my professor leaves well enough alone and doesn't try to hammer anything out.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Today I got home from work to find all the doors locked and nobody home. Don't you hate that?

I have a key, but there's something wrong with the front door lock. So my key has been stuck there since Monday. It doesn't turn the lock, and you can't get it out of the broken lock to use it on any of the others, so it's not like this is a security issue. Still, at some point, I suppose changing the locks might be in order. Someday.

I can fit through the cat flap, but I hate that. It's right next to the cat food dish and the litter box in the laundry room. And you know that thing is all covered with raccoon germs. Plus it's a fairly tight squirm, and I'm all sunburned. So I figured, what the hell. I'll just sit out here, on the porch, in the heat, and wait till everybody else gets home. That way they'll feel guilty!

Mr. Bingo Kitten, however, had seen me arrive on my bike. So he trotted towards me across the front yard, meowing urgently. He's hungry! He came up next to me on the porch, up to the front door. He pawed at the door. He gazed unhappily at me. He meowed some more. Why are you just sitting there, he was clearly wondering. Can't you see I want in? Haven't you got any heart at all?!

So I went around back, crawled through the cat flap, opened the front door and let him in.

Oh My God Look Out It's Right Behind You

Today was day 2 (and the final day - thank God - thank God!!!!) of my emergency management operations class. Aren't you happy I took it? Next time a pandemic sweeps the globe, or terrorists murder thousands of civilians in the process of destroying a major cultural and historic landmark, or a tropical cyclone causes widespread flooding in Helena, Montana, you can rest secure in the knowledge that I am immediately able to tell you which unit belonging to the Planning Section of the Incident Command General Staff is responsible for tracking inventory on the mental health professionals deployed to help you cope with the resultant stress.

Was that flippant? I don't mean to be flippant. Actually, I have a high level of respect - reverence really - for the organizational systems created to deal with and efficiently handle large-scale emergency operations. Business-as-usual could benefit a heck of a lot from adopting some of the models derived from these systems. Open, non-territorial communication among government agencies? (Or even - I tremble to think it - different divisions within the same agency?) Readily-comprehensible means of ordering and tracking resources?? Large-scale cooperation towards common objectives???? I can has every day - plees?!?!

No. You can not has. Still, it's rather inspiring to see what public entities actually are capable of, because who'd'a thunk? Never mind that our class was taught by APD cops, who made many jokes at the expense of Austin's good-natured, environmentally-conscious, liberal, happy-go-lucky character. Describing the process for obtaining resources from higher level resources in the event of a disaster (oh by the way, the large-scale devastation in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina was 100% the fault of local and state officials because they were not Bush supporters - just thought you might be interested to know that), one of our instructors mentioned that "Rick" must request a declaration of disaster from - here he hesitated - "Barack, now" - in order to receive Federal assistance.

"I'm impressed you remembered not to say 'George!'" remarked our second instructor.

"I'm impressed I was able to say 'Barack' without throwing up!" retorted the first.

Let's not make any pretense here - I sucked in this class. None of it made much sense to me. I tried to participate, but my brain kept finding other things to be interested in - including, at one point as I recall, the chemical makeup of the construction materials used in the drywall - and I had a lot of trouble finding anything worthwhile to contribute during my class table's hands-on exercises.

This is perfectly normal, and nothing to be alarmed about: I will not ever, nor would I wish to, function in a leadership capacity in an actual major emergency. Thus far, my job has been merely to disseminate information to the folks who are answering phones from the public; and this I can do. Maybe I have to make the occasional call about whether we'll order more port-a-potties. I'll leave the actual life-or-death decisions to the kind of people teaching my class, who have an unquestionably valuable contribution to make to society, without whom I wouldn't feel safe walking down dark alleys (inasmuch as I do anyway), and with whom, were I to be asked to go out for a few drinks and maybe dinner afterwards, I would, let's face it, not. ("Sorry! Have to give my cat a bath that night! So sweet of you to ask! Byeeeee!")

(Not that I would be asked. I strongly suspect that, no matter how much cleavage I don't show and how much my shoes refrain from slapping against my feet when I walk, I have the words "PINKO LIBERAL COMMIE SCUM" tattooed across me in six-inch-high letters that everyone who needs to can pretty clearly see; hence, I never get out of speeding tickets, never.)

I love what I do for a living; they clearly enjoy and prosper in their work: well enough. May our lives cross but once or twice a year. But, just for Karma's sake, I probably won't be drinking a lot of Hurricanes this weekend.

Welcome to Life!

Katie and I are both PMSing right now. I thought I'd go ahead and mention that, just in case you wanted to postpone your visit.

Yesterday Robbie allowed me to come rushing up to Georgetown and sweep him away for a random road trip: what fun! There's nothing else quite so therapeutic as just up and leaving. Have you noticed? I think that's why I love road trips so much. Symbolically, everything that bothers me is here at home, or at work, quarantined within about a 5-square-mile area. So it makes me feel a lot better to get in the car, grab a friend, and go to Lampasas. You heard me.

On the other hand, spring seems rather unequivocally to have sprung, and this also is irresistibly therapeutic. How can you be sad about anything when the trees all have tiny, pale green buds? Or when you've spotted a lone bluebonnet in a neighbor's yard? (Bad year for wildflowers this year, I'll tell you that right now.)

It's impossible not to be cheerful, even when last night led into the most difficult morning of the year (at least for those of us who are forced to observe daylight savings time) by keeping me awake, restive, fretful, tossing and turning, and finally allowing me to drop off two hours before six only to send me dreams of being sick, pregnant, bedridden, and attacked by tribble Muppet vampires with very sharp pointy teeth that crunched down into my ribs with much more realism than I thought strictly necessary, then waking me up in a cold sweat fifteen minutes before my alarm went off. And I had to pee.

I should have just called in sick. My boss did. On the other hand, I got a lot done today, and ended up feeling perfectly fine, not at all as if both arms had been ripped off and used to beat me about the head, which is more in line with the way I've been feeling lately. I can't understand these mood swings. I really need professional help - but really, only about two out of every three days, and falling.

And speaking of needing professional help, the Bubbly Bitching Smoking Nonsmoker found and friended me on Facebook (thanks, Robbie!), forcing me to take down the link to my blog in a big hurry. Her latest status update is grousing about how many status updates everyone else is posting, and in fact stopped me from posting a particularly witty remark about how nice it would be if Slappy White would quit knocking all the shit down off my dresser. I may just delete her.

Alas! if we could actually delete people in real life. Well, if only I could, anyway. It's one of those things that only works out if I'm the only one that gets to do it.

So never mind. Here's Robbie and me yesterday - and Lord bless us if we aren't only here on this earth by the grace of B.B.S.N.S. and all the times she never ran us over when we crossed the street in front of her on our way back from Dominican Joe. How can I be bitter?

Life Is Easy

Cleanliness is to Godliness as Efficiency is to...?

Everything would be a lot easier if life were multiple-choice.

In our staff meeting this morning, my boss mentioned that our agency's new plan of consolidating central functions was undergoing a pilot program in my old division, along with the other divisions in my old building. They're going to consolidate all the separate IT departments into one, to support everyone in the building. I almost spit out my coffee.

"Elizabeth seems to find this amusing for some reason," remarked my boss.

Well, yes and no. I mean, I did work there, and the general impression I have of the overall cooperativeness of employees in that building is perhaps not completely consistent with an image of everyone functioning smoothly under an umbrella organization. "Inefficiency" is not necessarily a word that springs to mind, but "infighting" is. Also "rampant obsolescence." At least one IT department in that building supports software developed during the Truman administration.

"Tell us what you think the problem might be," says my boss, leaning forward with her chin in her palm. She isn't confronting me, mind you; she's actually smiling with anticipation. There are moments I suspect I was hired solely for entertainment purposes.

"Well, I don't know," I said, "my general impression was that the IT group was the least cooperative element of a generally unhelpful area. I could be wrong. I'm curious to see how it works out. Can somebody bring popcorn?"

Everybody laughed, but I meant it.

Lucky me, I am in hardly any staff meetings these days, though I'll be on the road for an educational travel conference all next week. There will be no IT people present. I guess that's for the best, though on the whole I've always gotten on quite well with nerds.

Life is wonderful, and everything is easy. As long as you have someone else to point and laugh at.