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. 

Home

Three distilleries and one entire day's length of driving, and we're home cat sitting for Mamagaard and Papagaard. Luckily for mis-fortune accounting, Hunter pressed us to get home a day early (work does not suck, but is rather demanding) because a flat tire caused us to use this, Washington's Birthday, as a time to celebrate middle-class American's in a way other than tippling our own personal sacred nectar: replacing tires at Costco.

Totally worth it.

Travel Makes Thoughts Bullet Points

- Hotels in Hollows: They don't exist. Didn't see one between routes 81 and 75.

- But what was really perplexing to me was Louisville itself. I have the impression it's a fantastic city, but right when it should be most beautiful, it chokes.

- Pappy Van Winkle. Disappointing? What's the deal?

- A good bartender makes all the difference. Especially for extroverts.

- lack of coffee shops. vice Michigan, what causes that? what is the attitude difference?

- So much time with Hunter is fun and nice.

Time will come for following up. For now, we're going to explore Frankfort (not named for the German town, so Hunter's idea bout eating frankfurters a la Lady and the Tramp is just not in theme), and drink at Buffalo Trace today. We may see the super rich Hong Kong residents we met yesterday.

:)

Drive, and Bardstown

Lists of annoyances and petty reviews aren't really worth anyone's time, so here is a list of things that have gone right so far:

Lunch with Curly

Sighting of frolicking lambs!

Sighting of bison (?!)

Cumberland Gap

Prettiness of snow, if it cannot be considered a road trip aid...

Skyfall in HD on an iPad. 

Today, I was determined to have a "really good day" of vacation, then realized determining that fact was pointless. So, if I don't see all I have come here to see, and do all I have come here to Kentucky to do, then, well, it's a wasted vacation no matter how I look at it. I might as well just like the two things I can see and do. 

Hunter could not be a better traveling companion because he euphemizes all my quivering lips and warbling-voiced agitations. This is all epic. 

Also, I think we're sleeping in a renovated jail tonight. 

Tomorrow

I've done the basic packing for a little trip. Back pack. lots of under, lots of socks, some inter-changeable shirts, one pair jeans, one pair sleepy pants.

I'll bring one pair of ostentatious earrings. Probably no pretty shoes or necklace. A first aid kit. Mascara.

It's almost tempting to pack more than one bag. Hunter and I are taking an entire car. We'll have all the room in the world. This affords me one basket of dried goods. It also means I can't plug Dido, my iphone, in. hrm. I've re-structured the music scene lately. Thanks to getting this sweet new Dell lap top, courtesy of IT at The Company, I've had to restructure just about everything. It, for the first time, was not fun.

Anyway, Music. I've found old files from various places and four distinct external hardrives (none held the poetry backlog of Kiddo's juvenile genius). They are all consolidated in an iTunes folder outside The Company server.

Then I bought some Johnny Flynn. Look to the Gelatin Hour for a review at some point.

Kiddo's brain starts to wonder at the proliferation of names dropped in daily life. How separate are we from
A) village life
B) the suburb norm of America circa the last generation

Anyway, Music. Johnny Flynn is blowing my blonde little mind, and I'm super excited -- I just bought blank CDs from the CVS on my corner mid-commute, and can burn some for drive. 

Loss

Perhaps this is conceit, and perhaps it is "a sign," but great men were not often so humble, so defeatist to allow great loss of work to stop them recreating it.

There is, somewhere in the world, a thumb drive or external hard drive that still holds every poem, essay, novel chapter, dialogue, monologue, travelogue and diary entry I have written. It is just not resident under my  super sweet roof.

Except the Bourbon Book, which is still in a simple 10k word dribble on this particular computer. Which is fortunate, because that trip is scheduled to embark this Wednesday. That's four days away. I had better get that freaking structured, and fast!