Carrie vs. Hippy

If we learn anything about Carrie in Sex and the City, it's that she is special and she has special taste in clothes.

Today I was affronted in the office in the breakroom at the empty air pot of coffee that was not going to make itself by two women who care far more about clothes than I do.

"Kiddo," one started, "I love that you are just so you. You can take so many patterns and colors and just make them work for you!"

"Yea, you're so hippy," the other piped up.

It should be know that I am not a hippy. I am fiscally conservative to the point of being misconstrued as a Depression Baby with dollars sewn into my mattress. If I had a worthwhile mattress I planned on keeping around, and worth more than $50, I totally would sewn bills into it. I can't keep plants alive, crave violence, and prefer contraception to no contraception.

Dear Reader, you should also know that in this instance -- lacking coffee and dignity -- I was wearing no fewer than two types of plaid. One in grey tones, one in blue, orange and brown tones. Also a popped collar polo, black leather choker, a pink embroidered A-Line skirt, and river rafter shoes with reflective strips. My hair has not been brushed in 5 days owing to having lost my brush. Instead it is wet, in a knot and a pink polka-dot scarf ties it down.

So, maybe somethings, but gracious. 

I do not look anything like a hippy. I do not present myself anything like a hippy.

But, so much for self-perception.

Lastly, it just irked me that "hippy" is now an adjective. Really?

"No, hip," said the first woman, apparently taking in my expression of incredulous rage, "do you mean hip? You're totally hip, Kiddo."

"No, hippy. You  know, you like flowers and stuff."

Now, I clearly just didn't know what she was talking about. Now I'm a hippy and I'm stupidly unaware of what a hippy is.

"I can't keep flowers alive--" I turn to look for the coffee. It's not made. I came here for coffee, these people were standing right next to it, and not turning on the damned machine.

"Oh, I can do that."

Can you? Cus if so, why is it not done?

A stupid hippy with no coffee.

Or, if you're being kind, I am a more corporate Carrie. Carrie if she were in DC instead of Manhattan.

On a good day. With shoes donated by co-workers. Thanks!

Zinch

This website is a perfect website at first exploration. It's scope is succinct enough they complete exactly what they wanna do with a minimum of page usage. The visual presentation reflects the scope. blah blah blah...

But the most amazing thing is their weekly scholarship competition. Every week (Monday - Monday) Zinch.com gives away $1K for a 280 character essay. They provide prompt. You provide three sentences. Boom.

Here is my entry for today:

If you were to create a time capsule to be opened in the year 2099, what three items would you include to represent contemporary culture? Explain your selections.

Self-respecting time capsules are compact and cover the full scope of culture:  A can of Coca-Cola (food, chemicals, advertising and the #1 understood word in the world). iPhone – still in the box with its accoutrements. Obama bumper sticker: politics, self-expression, transportation & the year in one tiny package!

I worry I'm not hitting total culture here, but these three things are pervasive enough in every country that no matter what yurt you live in, you're going to encounter at least one of them. 

You'll now be viewing my hyper-speed thoughts every week, and when I finally win one of these things, we shall rejoice. 

I'm reading the terms and conditions now so I can see if they count spaces as characters. Also, it appears you have to already be enrolled to get the dough. So, I'll limber up with the blogging and hit hard core in a couple months. 

My Last Meal: Ikea

I'm more glad that you can know that this photo exists. 

Over the years, you've heard me love on Ikea. Ikea is so great I'll have my wedding (should such a crazy thing happen) will take place there. Then I can get sponsorship to pay for it. And it will be beautiful. And everyone will be comfy. And catering will be ideal and tasty. 

Those days are gone. 

And Hunter may call me an Absolutist from time to time, and perhaps he is right, but some things are just inherently great. Ikea was. 

My last trip there, however, was less than. 

As I have told Awesome Boss Who's Awesome (ABWA), there are few things in life I have faith in. Here is the list: 

1. ABWA

2. IKEA

3. Disney Corp.

These three things have always had the potential to let me down, to give up their integrity, to stop what makes them unique in a world of mediocrity. But they don't. Every time I feel the little Kiddo phloem break down, and the photosynthesis not quite keep up with where my leaves have reached, I shelter under the greenhouse of these three wonder-full entities. 

Well, that's all folks. 

Ikea 

a. no longer offers children sized meals to whomever

b. no longer adheres to their own aisle/bin organization

Though these may seem slight offences, they are only so because you, dear reader, live in a world used to such mediocrity. Such corner cutting in process and integrity is the reason we lay lack lustre in our stinkbug-filled homes. 

So we have to wander a bit more, gather a bit more, ask a bit more. It's only an hour or two on any weekend of our whole stinkbug-filled lives. Well, dear reader, the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots, and I will no longer be shopping at Ikea. I now have faith in only two things in this greater world. Maybe whiskey will fill that gap. 

But the dispute of such a precedent is for another rant on another day. 

All my Friends are Waiters

This was a title for a blog I dreamed in July last year. My oldest friends were stale and gone, and my current friends were so vital and wholly unaware of the world they exuded with every frustrated breath it hurt my little ribs to look at them, they were agitating in their neighborhoods amongst each other and throwing punches when one tottered too close to another.

Now even those friends are gone, and their agitations no longer worry me. The ripples they cause are spaced. The chop isn't all around. Life is their ocean, and never their oyster, small and never up to even under-statured expectations.

I love them, and you can too: http://travelwhateveretc.blogspot.com/2013/04/41013-erikas-apartment-447-am.html#comment-form

Why is Teamwork UnCool?

Somewhere between third grade field day, and your first leadership class in college, people lose interest in working together for a common goal.

Is it the lack of sight into the profitability of the larger goal?

World War 2 was a larger goal, and everyone was behind it, and totally into doing tiny tasks, each individual a cog, in order to get behind our government and win their war. The goal there was pretty obvious. Nazis were bad guys, they were doing easily understandable bad things.

When CEO wants the leaders of our company to cooperate, though, working collaboratively, is uncool -- When asked, cajoled, nudged, dictated to do so... nothing happens. All they have to do is tell one another what they're doing, and ask each other to do a thing or two. This thing or two will then be taken off the first party's plate. Working together actually makes their workloads lighter.

This leads me to believe they are masochists.

If they are not simple masochists, then obvious motivators are just not applicable. Being paid is not enough of a motivator. Nor pride in work. Nor good-natured helpery. Nor fear of unemployment.

Even in this job market.

At least, these are the things that spur me into overdrive, anyway. But sticking electrical rods into these ports of the brains of these employees is no good. Invoking things like your swollen pay check, the current job market, the happiness of others as a positive, self-pride, these things don't spark anything.

If the happiness of others as a positive is the opposite motivator, they must be sadists. Don't we jail sadists in this country?

Perhaps their ports, like the left side USB on my laptop, is bruised enough they no longer accept signals?  So, what is it that motivates them?

Kiddo, personally, does not want to stoop to threatening children. It is not the fault of the child the parent or grandparent is useless.

Maybe these people are nihilists.

How do you cajole a nihilist into caring? Are they aware they're nihilists? To conciously care about nothing, and conciously do nothing would be more admirable, certainly, but then they should go the Lebowski route and date porn stars, not work for the US Government.

This begs the obvious question: Are we finally decadent enough to open state-sponsored vomitoriums? It may cut down on the research needed into obesity.

Even before you realize they may be nihilists, though, you gotta wonder where the hell all these nihilists came from? How did they meet and decide to confer here?

I sure don't know, but I'm sure that just my sparky, spunky little email, and CEO's sparky, reassuring encouragement sure ain't going to solve it.

Compartmentalization

In taking the federally required training in how to be ethical I have learned that people do no naturally see their lives as touching other larger things.

When a fish swims through a river, does it see the rocks and feel the eddy pools as distinct entities or does it just swim normally and not see or feel them as different experiences from a stagnant pool?

Work is a part of your life. When you're a workaholic it's a substantially larger part, but still only a part. Within work are other sections -- HR vs. Finance for example, and so on. Each part is a rock or pool in the river while you swim, and each demands a different sort of behavior or set of speech patterns, places to sign signatures and how much energy you want to put into finding out what you're signing.

State and National Politics are usually  separate parts of your life. So why would it suddenly occur to people-- to such an extent that I have to waste time learning about it-- that work money, the money your office and engine of industry creates is ok for you to spend on your own State and National Politics section of life.

Granted, my fish metaphor falls apart here, but it is no more cool to donate to this or that party with company dollars than it is to buy a hooker with them or buy your goldfish a castle? The company has, by its nature, already allocated you a pocket of money to do these things. Why is my time being wasted because of other people's very silly mistakes?

Is this another sign that Kiddo is falling into Curdmugeon zone? Curdmudgeon-o just doesn't have the same ring to it. What's a girl to do?

Dissolution / Disillusion

Warning: declarative statements from the overly emphatic ahead.

The difference between writers and the forgotten observers of the world is the physical discipline of making your thoughts appear in the real world.

Pro-longed readers of Kiddo will notice, then, that she is not at all a writer, for she has very little of this discipline. 

Take a survey of writers and you'll find there are actually as many types of writers as there are people so described. Little declarative statements like the one above often turning into the small graspings of a small person trying to drive a little spike into the world on which to hang a flag and claim something for their own existential fulfillment. 

In which case, Kiddo could very well be a writer, but a very bad one. 

Here is drawn another line in the mind dunes: Is it preferable to be a bad thing or not to be the thing at all? 

The lack of response that will surely deafen me will not convince me one way or the other, but will cerainly reaffirm both points of view of Kiddo's status as writer. Which fact of bothness negates the whole thing.