An Almost Happy Fella

OK, this last week at work was BAAAAD, but for some reason it didn’t depress me like the week before. Maybe my skin is thickening, like a big callous. Maria Callous – wait till she hits the high notes, folks!

Actually, the pain in the butt this last week is that I HAD to be at Lockheed all week because the VP of Training took all of his full-time employees to Dallas for an All-Staff offsite, Ummm. Leaving me and the secretary here all alone to oversee your entire department? Ummm. Not a good idea, removing a department of 11 and leaving a secretary and a consultant to answer questions. Hehe.

On Monday, I had – no kidding – 40 people stop by our offices and ask Monna and me questions. We felt so stupid. “Duhhhh, we dunno…” We said this so many times, I was thinking of making t-shirts.

I actually had those people from Communications – you know, the people who SHOULD be working on Mentoring assignments I give them – make a sign.

Basically it said:

"IMPORTANT

Almost everyone in Training is either on Vacation or Travel this week. If you have a question about anything that is not Leadership 21, it is best to send them an email.

If you have a Leadership 21 question, please knock.”

Cuz we dunno nuttin’, basically!!! LOL.

A little unprofessional, but that seemed to fix it. And my graphics designers did a nice job (all lime green and hot pink with dark teal lettering. A blind person couldn’t miss it!) Maybe that’s why I didn’t get too sore about last week.

And then I got a lot done on the book for the class. Now I’m kinda at the point where I need the customer to look at it to make sure we are not any off-mark. Because reworking after the graphics people got a hold of it would be baaaad. They’d be sore.

I spent my lovely Friday night staying late at Lockheed. Suzanne Prose, the computer-based-education person, came back from Dallas upset. The Curriculum Development Director job was offered to someone in Dallas (whom, I would agree, seems not up to the task – but what do I know? I may be surprised…) Suzanne seemed to have wanted the job. But after doing my Career Coach thingy with her, I found that she had never really openly talked about the position with Doug , her boss, the guy who took them all to Dallas for the week. Oh, Suzanne and Doug talked about vague, plausibe growth possibilities years and year and years ago in a galaxy far, far away… And Suzanne hasn’t sat down with Doug and gotten performance feedback or career planning or anything for years! Ummm.

“He didn’t give you this new job, honey, because he’s probably forgetting that you exist. You just sit there in the cubicle with your bitter, little head down.”

GAH! Why do people think they don’t have to do anything but show up to get promoted!?!?!

She took it well, understood. I felt like I helped her.

Then Mike Yaroma came over. He’s a very conservative ex-Marine, and we both enjoy arguing immensely. But I had a class to redesign, so I did some work while chatting with him. Got out at 8:30p.m. Still, because I like my work, I didn’t feel like I’ve wasted a Friday night.

Went and met the gym teacher for salads at Wendy’s (shwank!) and then walked around Super Target (shwanker) for a while with him. He bought some sort of small, plastic house item - I forget what it was, but it was small and plastic and sort of pearl-colored (shwankest!)

I personally bought a copy of Time magazine and found out what I already know, which is that I’m a fairly happy person in a fairly happy nation.

Saturday, I finally got to the gym. Did an HOUR on the elliptical and had my spleen throbbing for the rest of the day!

Later that morning, I met Front Runners for brunch at the Parliament House. That afternoon I went and saw A Very Long Engagement with Michael Slaymaker and Jeff Henderson (who still is missing his roof from Hurrlycane Charie - eeks). French film. Very French. There was a point when the plot was so well-complicated that I lost why the movie couldn’t end just then and right there! But it went on. And on. I figure it’s my lack of knowledge of the language. It’s a cute, charming film. And I always like that foreign films have a better sense of showing fascinating, even nonsensical visuals. BUT! I believe that if anyone openly admitted to doing all the Magical Thinking that the main character does in the film, they’d be locked up at the Lakewood Facility for the Certifiably Schizophrenic, Mildly Paranoid, and Extremely Socially Challenged (where Michael works, and Utmost Productions rehearses our plays, ironically or not.)

That’s a term, people – Magical Thinking. Look it up.

Saturday night I went over to Dan Kilponen’s to have chili dinner with David Almeida and Jaime Cox. Lovely chili and corn bread and brownies, but we basically shoveled in the food and ran.

CUZ WE JUST HAD TO! Grrr. We HAD TO go to the Helen Stairs Theatre in Beautiful Hysteric Downtrodden Sanford. Double-Grrrrr!!! "Theatre" is such a strong word...

David and I HAD TO race there to see The Most Crappy Fella. You can read more at David’s blog (http://mediocrityatitsbest.blogspot.com/), but in short:

Bad community theatre
Cheap sets
No choreography
Fairly dull music staged badly
No movement in the blocking whatsoever
Sets falling on actors (a VERY funny moment by the way)
A trombone player who should, for the sake of all good people, be summarily executed
Fairly good performances by Andre Provencher and the leading lady
Great performances by the comic lady and man (Anna Kay was the lady)
A pretty man to look at – Gerrett Koester – in the role of Joe

When the lights went down for the second of three acts, I said “I’m going blind!!! Now if I go deaf, it’ll be a perfect evening!!!”

Why is bad theatre so enjoyable?

Later, we met Joshie and his sister Amber for some Mark and Lorna, lounge singers extraordinaire. I simply love and worship Joshie, I do – especially when he pounds on the table during “All That Jazz” like an angry drunk. (Don’t take this as an insult, Joshie, I do truly adore it! It takes chutzpah! Moxie even!)

Marcie and Kevin were there - Marcie hates when I post sarcastic and mildly teasing things on her blog - she forgets that I love her. I have to remind her every so often before I spit some more venom.

Sunday morning I worked out for a more sensible 40 minutes. Then I sat around, drank copious amounts of hot tea, and read a lot in that Malcolm Gladwell book Blink, that I’m currently in love with. Gladwell mentions Kenna, a singer I really enjoy. Kenna’s first album is like Duran Duran and Seal got together and cut rough demos, with a mentally unstable computer geek producing. That’s as close as I can get to describing Kenna’s music. And I love it! I dug it out and have been listening to it some more.

All the music I have that no one else listens to… Sigh...

Oh, and I had a dream that proves to me that – at least unconsciously – I truly and whole-heartedly believe that my swimming pool musical can work. I have it all plotted out in my head now, with:

Jeff Lindberg as the protagonist, a community college professor of Human Behavior
Marcie Schwalm as his slightly shrewish, but also wise, religious older sister
Kimberly Grey as Jeff’s young, artistic wife
Josh Geoghagen as Kim’s once-reckless brother trying to straighten up his life
David Almeida as Jeff’s best friend – a gay lawyer who is also a little too entertaining
Matty McDermid as David's foreign parner, trying to maintain his Visa
Sarah French as Josh’s date, kind of an outsider to this small party, and a bit too wild for anyone’s good

Anyway, that’s the teaser. My dream had Dustin Hoffman in a dress coming to see our opening night at a shwank theatre. It was such a wonderful, positive experience and image (Dustin in a dress) that I believe now I can pull off this terribly dark, comic music about morals versus self-protection.

Speaking of Magical Thinking.

At any rate, it’d HAVE to be better than that barf we saw up in Sanford. But I also know I have my work cut out for me.

Let the magic begin…

(Oh, and I did some shopping and I had lunch at Smokey Bones with David, Mikey and David Dean. They just came from church to remind me that God is still expecting me to return there. For dinner, I had some good Bikkurri Sushi with Cathy. The end. "GAH, this is a long one!" And I ain't said those words in many, many years. snif.)