Bucky Out

Since I have this secret belief that no one is reading but my boyfriend these days, I'm sure no one will mind if I delay my wrap up of this weekend's events - which primarily involved watching movies and continuing the trend of not buying a motorcycle due to rain. I'll also be reducing the number of postings this week both things due to the online seminar I'm taking, which is monopolizing my time. More later on that as well.

Illiterate for a Weekend

So during my lunch break I was reading my creativity class book and learned that this week one of our exercises is to go the entire week without reading. The entire week. Without reading. I'm a journalist. How am I supposed to not read my notes, not read what I write, not read the paper? Then again not reading the paper might be a blessing in disguise. Anyway, two and half days of my week are already past, so I'm just going to try going the weekend without reading. Prepared for a creative me on Monday!

Ride, Sally Ride

So instead of posting my own account of last night, I will just copy and paste the Email I received this morning, wrapping up our evening of fun at children's advocacy organization's fundraiser. The names have been deleted to protect the innocent:

Where to begin.... First and foremost many thanks to K., who once again did his rainbow feather boa proud....We're all pulling for you to make it two in row in the CA....To H., who quite frankly did everything proud,....I don't think the wait staff or the chairs at our table will ever be the same....to S., shake-it, baby, shake-it....clearly the most sought after dance partner at the party...who were all those women you were slow dancing with?.....To A. and G., who did the Bar (profession and otherwise) proud and clearly showed they are "too much fun to be lawyers"....To Bucky, who coyly wore her sun glasses to avoid detection by her boss, I must honestly say you not only had the best moves on stage, but you can really belt "Ride, Sally Ride"...I think the Jimmy Johnson Orchestra may have found a new backup singer....To L., not only are you a foxy grandma, you are a super foxy grandma....too bad you had to leave before the chair dancing...you would have been our spotlight dancer....To H.M., so many thoughts, so little time...clearly the best dancer at the whole function...smooth, soulful and stylishly dressed...clearly you were the Mac Daddy of the table this year!

And finally, to B. (aka Bubblegum/Brittney Spears), you not only fulfilled your duties as A.H.'s substitute, I actually believe you are a better A.H. than A.H.....you danced on stage, danced on chairs, served food with rhythmic bounce and cheer...I don't know, we may have to let the folks vote next year on which of you returns.

***

For your information I did not want to sing "Ride, Sally Ride" but I was pulled on stage by Bubblegum who had no problem singing in front of all those people. I kept trying to turn my head away from the man with the microphone and he kept sticking it in my face. Luckily it was late enough in the evening that I believe everyone was trashed by that time. I'm also hoping there was no one there that I knew (who wasn't sitting at my table). Or at least they didn't recognize me with my feather boa and sunglasses.

It's Thursday, right?

Well I came in to write about the glorious 10-3 victory by the Sox last night, but my excitement has already been deflated by the men who work in my department and their insightful analysis of the games. They should all go get jobs at ESPN or better yet as baseball coaches. They know so much more than the current ones, at least to hear them tell it. What are they still doing here? They should be coaching, not writing or editing. They could be making the big bucks and I wouldn't have to listen to them any more. Already their chatter has put me in an annoyed state of mind. It will be hard to accomplish anything today.

So now I need to think of something else to write about. I saw The Killers last night. I like them but didn't realize they were so popular with the 12-year-olds. Good thing their concert got out by 11 a.m. or all those kiddies would be out past curfew and then all hell would break loose. Then again with only one album, how late could they have played? The band sounded pretty good live but it's obvious that "Somebody Told Me" will be their only hit - and I use that term loosely to mean, played on the radio several times during daylight hours. I wouldn't mind being proved wrong as I like this resurgence of New Wave 1980s music, but I have no hope that it will last.

Alan Alda for President Or What Radio DJs Are Talking About This Morning

Well, sadly, I have nothing funny to report from class this morning. We have one person who clearly doesn't want to be in the group, so I'm not sure why he keeps coming. Probably just bored with his job and the class is good for a laugh.

So instead I will mention that I missed the Gilmore Girls last night. (I'm thrown off my days of the week due to being off work Monday.) And that at long last The West Wing season begins tonight. I'll have to tape it, of course, because of the writing class I teach overlaps with the show. Hopefully I'll find time to watch it before the weekend. Stupid radio disk jockeys were talking about the show this morning and had no idea what was going on. People who do not know what they're talking about should not veer from their scripts. They were saying Alan Alda was being introduced as a possible presidential candidate and that they guessed Martin Sheen would be voted out of office. He's already run for reelection, idiots! He can't run away. So either the DJs don't watch the show or they don't know that a president can only serve two terms. It's a toss up, which is the case.

Well lunch is quickly approaching so I've managed to waste away another perfectly good morning, doing absolutely nothing productive. I'll leave you with that thought and the pocket lint I dug out of my pants this morning.

Food Me

So if you're looking for a good gift idea this holiday season I suggest the following cookbook: Cat Cora's Kitchen and not just because she's my godparent's daughter and I grew up with her. It's because cookbooks make great gift ideas. And this one is chock full o' yummy goodness of the Greek, French, Italian and Southern variety. Ah the joys of growing up Greek in the Deep South.

She did a book signing in Oxford, Miss., last night and she's in the middle of one in Jackson, Miss., as I type. If she comes to your town, go see her. She's a hoot and she brings along great food. So that's what I was SOOO busy doing yesterday that I didn't have time for you people. But I'm back at work today and am writing away for your reading pleasure (after beginning my day with a lovely slide show of bone replacement surgery. Goes great with muffins and juice.)

Tomorrow my creativity class meets again so be prepared for some more chuckles and guffaws from that front.

Warning! Idiots in the Machine

So yesterday when our Email was down and nobody knew why, it turned out that the IT department had SENT US AN EMAIL telling us they had taken the server down for repairs. That is true genius at work. Today, just a few moments ago actually, we received an E-mail AHEAD of the shut down informing us of the ill-timed decision to work on the server some more right at deadline. Nice going guys. I'm sure in no time you all will be running the U.S. government computer systems, probably in the Defense Department and maybe Homeland Security. God help us.

Writing Woes: A note on those the American education system left behind

So our company E-mail is down and unfortunately the work that I need is on the E-mail system. So I guess I'll just blog.

On Wednesday nights I teach a writing class for adults at the local literacy council and it's been very frustrating trying to make them understand subject-verb agreement.

We have been drilling on when to use "am, is, are" for about a year now and people still don't get it. While they are testing well with fill in the blanks, their writings are not reflecting what we're studying in class. Everything is still "they is" and "I are." I feel very discouraged sometimes.

Last week we added "was, were" to our studies and that was a disaster. They were putting are and is in the blanks even though I kept saying "Put only one of two words in the blanks - was or were." Not even close. And this is an advanced class. They supposedly read on about a fifth grade level. (Although I know some of them are closer to a first grade level.)

How do you explain these basic concepts to people in a way that will stick in their heads? We only have an hour a week. (This semester my writing class has been combined with a reading class, so we do one hour of reading followed by one hour of writing. An hour is barely long enough for me to explain their assignment so everyone understands.) I tell them to study at home, give them homework. It's a rare student that does either. I'm not sure how effective this set up is. If someone really wants to learn to read and write, they need to spend at least an hour a night working on it, I think. I wonder if I should switch to personal tutoring. Maybe it's easier to see a student's growth on that level.

Anyone have any thoughts, ideas on teaching adults?

A Quick Musical Interlude

I saw an great show in an awkward setting last night. (Held at a local restaurant/nightclub. Those of us without a table had to bob and weave to avoid the slightly annoyed food-carrying waiters.) The show was short but unique with Section Quartet as the opener, playing stringed version of pop/rock music. The main act was a woman named Sam Phillips, who is yet another prolific singer/song writer I've never heard of. (I am so not cool.) The music was not alt. country, as I was told before hand, but more country-influenced jazz. Sam has a great voice that seems both throaty and bubbly at the same time. Too bad I'm not a writer, perhaps I could explain it better. Anyway, check her out if you have the time. Best of all, despite the clinking of plates you could clearly hear the show. And there were very few idiots yelling out to the singer but all did so at appropriate times, which I think of as: When the singer is not singing or talking.

13-3, Interception Return

So I have a few minutes to write about my absolute lack of anything to write about. It's raining here, as it has been all weekend long. This just gives me one more excuse for wanting to still be at home in bed...not that I need an excuse to want to do that. Another reason to stay home: so I don't have to hear a detailed analysis of this weekend's baseball games and how fantasy football leagues are faring. Do I care? No. Do I subject them to my conversations, for example a detailed analysis of the laundry I did this weekend? No. I hate when I can't get work done because of the loud conversations going on around me. God forbid we do some work around here. Good thing the bulk of our news hole goes now to the society column and big photos, I guess.

Creatively Yours...also known as: Week 2 Begins

So my creativity class met today, thereby rendering my entire morning - to use the technical term - "shot." Hopefully I'll get some work done after lunch. I have several interviews I need to conduct today and unless we have another flu vaccine shortage pop up, I should be able to fit them in. But my job is ever changing, so who the hell knows.

Back to creativity. We've already had one person drop out of our small group because she just doesn't have time to meet and do the work, which really isn't all that much, but whatever. A second person didn't show up today and it's only our second meeeting. A third may not finish the course because he has yet to do any of the work...except maybe the chapter reading. I'm not sure. Look, I think this class is dopey just like they do, but I'm in it and I'm going to finish it and I don't appreciate people who slack off their work in class or on the job. If I can find time, they can find time.

So, as you can imagine, right now I'm not feeling the creative flow, I'm feeling rather bitter. I also didn't feel very nurture today as an argument broke out over the definition of creativity, which is just ridiculous. I made the point that you can't be creative with earnings reports and several of my classmates said, "Oh sure you can." (They do not work with earnings reports.) And I thought yeah, you can, but it's called fraud by most people.

Then the facilitator (because we don't have a "teacher") said, "Yeah, like..." and launched into some story about changing the way you come to work and I just was looking at her like, "What the hell does this have to do with earnings reports?!" I mean what bad movie have I walked into, people?! Someone help me, please! I'm crying out to you! Call out the dream police to help get me to the waking world because this can't be it!

Anyone?

Help.

Creatively Challenged

Here we go again. I tried to post yesterday but my post was lost and the "Page Unavailable" warning that makes your bones crawl out of your body popped up.

So I was saying yesterday that work really interferes with one's ability to post. The most prolific and best bloggers must people without day jobs or students or the IT department at my company, all of whom are gathered in some dark, undisclosed location in this building and only come out when new computers come rolling in. They are probably master bloggers and actually control all the world's blogs. They probably are even writing this blog and I just THINK that I'm writing it. They are clever, our IT department. Anyway, all this is to say that work has sucked up all my time and all my creativity.

This leads me to topic number two in what will henceforth be referred to as The Missing Post - my creativity class. Yes, I am taking a creativity class, which is supposed to unblocked our creativity, through our in-house "university." It's a twelve-week course and sadly we are only in Week One. Good news is this should mean I have plenty fodder for future posts (even if they aren't particularly creative ones).

Week One: I can report that I do not feel any more creative than the week before I started the course. I dutifully write my morning pages everyday before getting dressed. I have done all the exercises and have even done my daily affirmations (yes, that's right, daily affirmations...like I'm Stuart Smalley) and so far I have not magically transformed into a creative genius. Of course, the book would say this is my Censor at work. So I guess I should change the name of this blog to Censor's World and let the Censor become my alter ego. Then my real ego will feel free to be creative without worrying that I might be gay or cannot spell, which apparently are two reasons - according to the book - that people block their creativity. I personally think my creativity has been strangled to death by daily deadlines and the five W's and H. But I haven't written a book on that philosophy, so I guess my opinion doesn't count.

To celebrate my soon to be found, newfound creativity I think we, my little Internet community, should start our own annoying list that can be E-mailed around by newbies to the Internet. (You know, those folks who still believe forwarding a 32MB file that lists every blond joke ever written will be funny to the whole of their address book.) We will call the list something unoriginal like 101 Ways to Find Your Creativity.

Who wants to start? It can't be me because I have no creativity.