The Sound of Your Smile

I answer the Help Desk phone for IT Support in a library system. There are a bunch of branches in our system. Like 16 or something. And we have a ton of employees. I haven't counted lately but three or four hundred maybe. I am not sure. The exact number is not important.

Many of these staff members will never have any need to call the Help Desk. And so I'll never hear their voice on the other end of the phone.


Many others do, however, have repeated need to call the Help Desk. Frequent Fliers. Or Repeat Offenders, depending on your primary outlook on life. Myself, I enjoy my oft' calling coworkers.
And of those, my favorites are the ones where I can hear their facial expression.

Impassive, whether in person or on the phone, is NOT one of my favorite states. I appreciate animated. Screw stoic. I like to hear a person's smile or grimace or squint as we speak on the phone.


I deeply appreciate those who will put themselves out there. Why repress? Isn't that kind of tiring and constipating?


I believe in celebrating the demonstrative, emotional, impassioned people in my midst. I enjoy those who will let their true nature show through a bit. Let it out.


In that work setting that can be so sterile and impersonal, I am grateful for a glimpse of personality. I want to hear your facial expression, please.


(You know, unless of course you are really mad at me, then go ahead and just keep that to yourself.)

Falling Back

"What one super power would you choose?"
"Time travel."

I don't even have to consider all the others. I decided this question long ago. If I reach back in this blog's archives, I'll probably find an earlier post on this.

The time change twice a year always feels like a little time travel teaser to me. The hint of something I can never really have.
It's too bad, too. I would be very good at time travel, I think. I'm positive, in fact, that I'd make the very most of such an opportunity.
"With great power comes great responsibility..." and all that. I'll not go into when I'd travel to and what I'd do when I got there. Because then you'd know my Kryptonite secrets.

I am grateful for the 'extra hour' this weekend.
I'm grateful for the ability in blogger to make this post look like I wrote it yesterday.
Ta-da!

Bookends

I've made a tentative and temporary commitment every Saturday morning this month at 8 a.m.
Can a 'commitment' really be tentative and temporary? Probably not.

Anyway, the point of my point is that I decided to get up at 6:15 a.m. on a Saturday morning, to get ready, leave my house at 7:00 a.m. to be 'in town' to attend this pseudo-commitment by 8:00 a.m.
This seemed like a fine idea when I made it.
I have Saturdays off.
I'll get in town nice and early, maybe take myself out for a nice breakfast afterward.
Have the whole day ahead of me.
(You have to read those last three lines with a trilly sing-song lilt to your voice, like this is the best idea ever and you don't have a care in the world.)
So Friday night comes and I know I should be heading to bed, early morning and all that. But I'm not tired. Read in bed for a while, still not tired. Turn off the light, wait for a bit. Still not tired.
Did not get much sleep at all. From beginning to end. Even if you could piece all the little snippets of dozing off together.
The alarms shrills at 6:15. A.M. What was I thinking? I do not want to get out of bed. I do not want to get dressed. I do not want to do this.
I grumble tumble my ass out of bed. 'I need to go to at least one so I'll know if it's worth it every other Saturday this month.' Right?
I splash water over my head. Eat something left over from yesterday and start my car.
It's still frickin' dark outside. What the hell.
I'm fifteen minutes late getting started on my hour drive. 7:15 and it's still DARK!
"Just do it once and then you'll know."
I console myself with the sure knowledge that there is going to be no traffic from here all the way into town at 7:20 on a Saturday morning.
Right?
Right?
On the way, I start across the Purdy Spit when I notice this color in the sky that I rarely see. Purple. Deep, deep blue clouds against a lightening violet sky with pink streaks swiped across is sweeping strokes. Morning.
I don't see morning like this very often. The couple of trees leaning inward along the Purdy Spit are silhouette black against the wakening sky. Very cool. Striking.
I hit the on ramp to 16 and the striking nature of nature is lost by the survival instinct not to get killed in traffic. Watch the road. Pay attention. Drive safe. Check. Check. Check.
I attend my early morning function with a feeling that I may do this again next week. We'll see. I'll reserve judgement.
I proceed through my day that is to include a good deal of driving, visiting, laughing, driving, waiting, talking and driving. Picking up, dropping off. Shopping, wrapping. Parking and driving.
When the meat of my long day is behind me and I'm finally headed home from town, I'm driving back across the Purdy Spit and I notice the color of the sky. Purple.
Deep, deep blue clouds against a darkening violet sky with pink streaks swiped across is sweeping strokes. Evening.
Same trees leaning toward the roadway, away from the water, warped by the wind over the years. Dark and skulky in silhouette against the sky that is nodding off for the night.

From the book ends of my day, I'm grateful for the symmetry of nature.

From the heart of my day, I am grateful for the honor of knowing my daughter. She is one of the most amazing and cool people I have ever met. I am indeed a fortunate woman to know her.

Crazy 'bout a Sharp Dressed Man

What happened to men wearing hats as a rule? And I am NOT talking about a frickin' base ball cap. Have you seen The Sting. It did really well during award season the year it came out. Best Picture, Best Direction, Editing & other impressive stuff. Best Original Score. Who doesn't know the theme to The Sting forty years later?

Art Direction and Costume Design were, for me, the most impressive, however. And also the most sad.

What happened to a man's pride in himself. Suits and hats? Polished shoes.
Let me do that irritating thing and answer my own question.
Dressing up isn't edgy enough. There is so much currency in 'edgy' for so long now that I'm afraid we'll never get back. And men are the trailblazers here: edgy movies, edgy music, edgy vocabulary, edgy games and toys.
Some how the genius gender of males have come to the conclusion that dressing up, taking pride in their appearance is some sign of ... of... of what? Weakness, femininity? Are you a wimp if you look nice?
Boy my efforts toward posts of gratitude are listing severely to the side this November. That was not an apology. Just an observation.

ZZTop is not my style but when something resonates, you should not question it. They sing: "Silk suit, black tie, I don't need a reason why." I wish this were true.

I'm crazy, I mean grateful for a cut, crisp, slick styled, sharp dressed man. Too bad there are none anywhere around any more.

Sharpie Me In!!

This gratitude thing is important to me but I keep pushing the blog post off until later. Not the most grateful energy.

I love school supplies. Notebooks, Binders, Mechanical Pencils, Uniball gel pens, Highlighters, Colored paperclips, College-rule notebook paper. I love it all. And Crayon! Don't even get me started on the 64 box of Crayons.

And Sharpies. Man, what is not to love about Sharpies, right? Well, they are permanent. I don't always love that part. But, you know it says permanent right on the pen, so we can't say we haven't been warned. And Fine Point Sharpies rarely stay fine, no? That nice crisp point in a new Sharpie really is quite fleeting. Other than that?

I love Sharpies. I remember the year they came out with Sharpie colors other than black, red and blue. They came in purple, yellow, gray, pink. Good colors all.

Today I was talking to one of my writing buddies about getting together soon. We realized we both have the next few Fridays free.

"Well, hey. Come out to my house," I said. "We'll have a little mini NaNoWriMo writers group out here by the water."
"I can't do it this week but I am putting it in my calendar for next Friday," she said.
"Okay this is going to be great. Pencil me in," I said automatically. Then quickly retracted. "No, not pencil. Sharpie me in!"

Lately in my social interactions there's been a lot of 'Yeah, we need to get together.' Or 'That's a great idea, let's do that.' But then it never happens. Not even bothering to pencil it in. This is bullshit. We don't even really mean to follow through. It's just false agreement. No way to treat each other, in my opinion. We take our friends and our friendships for granted. The few good people that we manage to make a real connection with deserve more than an obligatory but empty agreement. Shouldn't we treat those few who make it past our social filters with more care and respect? More gratitude?

We might stop offering after a while. And that would be a sad day. Indeed.

I'm grateful for Sharpies. Sharpie me in your schedule and I'll Sharpie you in mine.

Word Play

I am so grateful for Microsoft Office. Word, specifically

You probably will not often hear me start a sentence with the words "I am so grateful for Microsoft...(anything)." Especially lately.

And yet.

Microsoft Office Word, in spite of how I feel about technology in general, is one of my favorite bits of software. Now granted I've tried little else by way of word processing but I've grown so accustomed and familiar with Word that the thought of going without makes me a little nervous.
The only other product I'm remotely familiar with is Microsoft Works. A product I think Microsoft may have made intentionally frustrating so that Word would feel so much more slick and grown up.

It feels odd that during a month in which my goal is to shine a light on gratitude, I would list something as common place as a word processing program but I must be true to my heart.
My 'asdf jkl;' proper finger-placement loving heart.

2000 words yesterday. Nice, no?

November Gratitude

I must confess here at the start that I might be off to a rough beginning. My gratitude tends to be leaning in a 'Thankful for the lack of bad things' direction. For the record, I am opposed to that way of thinking.

"Well, at least things aren't worse."

"He's not a bad guy. He never hits me or cheats on me."

"I'm just glad it didn't cost us more."

I do not believe the absence of a negative equals the presence of a positive. I want to feel the abundance of the positives. Not merely be happy that things aren't worse.

I'm grateful to be aware of this distinction. I am grateful for gratitude.

I'm grateful for the bald eagle I saw circling over Key Center as I drove through today.
I'm grateful to be sitting next to a fire, next to the Sound at the end of my day.