testing testing testing whee i haven't done this in awhile!

Hibernation

Ah, winter. Post-holiday, time to settle in and hibernate for a few months. While I think I'm naturally part bear and have a great desire to hibernate every year when the days are short, this year the desire is especially strong. I feel like sticking close to home, playing with my son and my sister, reading books, renting movies, and cleaning things out. I've been on a tear in that regard, cleaning out my closet, the basement, dresser drawers, kitchen cabinets, everything I can get my hands on. I even went through the Christmas decorations and discarded the ones that no longer appeal to me, which was more than I expected.

I'm not sure why the desire is so strong this year. Maybe it's because I've been so busy, for months on end. I usually end up with every weekend booked solid, and one or two nights during the week. I've been dating a couple of different guys, and that's getting exhausting in and of itself. There are two I've been particularly fond of, but one is wearing on my nerves a little--his inability to plan in advance and his tendency to interrupt and talk over other people are beginning to outweigh his sweetness, intelligence, and good looks. The other guy is wonderful and his main downfall is that he wants me to be his GIRLFRIEND, and I'm just not up for it at this point. I like the guy a lot, but dating just him would give him too much of the wrong idea. I don't want to hurt his feelings (or at least not more than I do by dating people besides him, which he assures me on a regular basis drives him crazy).

I need to slow down and take things easier. My ex-husband has my son this weekend, both Friday and Saturday nights, and I've got a date Friday night, my girlfriends coming over on Saturday morning for our girl time, and I'm going out with my sister and friends on Saturday night to hear an 80s band play. Even though it's only January and I've just had three weeks off, I need to schedule a vacation day or two just to get a breather. I did get a nice break Sunday...I got up and went to Sunday school, and instead of going to an art opening later that day, I puttered around the house, read my book, listened to music, watched a movie, and generally relaxed for the best part of the day (I did exercise before I got him back, which freed up a large chunk of my evening as well).

Invasive Marketing and Bad Grammar

I have a letter on my desk from a company called "B & B Motors," located at 7506 Vine Street in Cincinnati. It's on plain, cheap paper and includes no salutation. It looks cheesy and low rent. And that fits the company's marketing strategy, which apparently is to peruse local court records for divorces, and then market to the divorcing parties. It feels invasive, and rude, and it SO makes me not want to do business with the company (the owner of which apparently can't even write well--here's the letter, verbatim.:)

If you will take just a few minuets of your time this letter will be beneficial to you.

Although you have just filed for Divorce your credit is good with us.

Just bring this letter with you to us at 7506 Vine street and we will put you in a car right away......NO WAITING......NO CREDIT CALLS......NO CO-SIGNERS. All we want from you is a down payment and a sincere desire to pay.

So act now, don't delay, come on out and drive away.

Sincerely

William H. Ballard

Nice,huh? I especially like the little jingle at the end. I feel like calling the company and yelling at them for violating my privacy, but I sincerely doubt it's that easy to dissuade a company that would take such a low-rent approach to marketing. Oh well.

Procrastination

I have a large pile of legal agreements on my desk. Two different companies, two different product agreements, and assorted addendums that are giving me a headache from looking at them. These all need to be combined into one document. By me. Of course the attorneys will review and rewrite them afterwards, but gaaaah. I would rather be strangled and thrown in a ditch than do this. But, that's my job, at least today. So I'll get it done.

I'm traveling on business the rest of this week, and while I hate the idea of being away from my son (he's 1 1/2), the trip itself should be good. It's a quick trip, and the only really annoying thing about it is that I have to fly on a prop plane part of the way. About this I am not thrilled. I'm not a great flyer in the best of circumstances (see my blog entries about recent trips and the fun I've had with alleged airport security measures and you'll see why). I'm going to Augusta, Georgia, to visit a customer. And I don't want to hear about that stupid golf course, ok? OK.

Thinking Versus Feeling: The Next Ten Words

Charles Krauthammer has a great quote about understanding the American political system: "To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil." The full article is online here.

This sums up the positions in a nutshell, and while it's more than a little simplistic, it's also more than a little true. I was talking about this with a conservative-minded friend of mine last night while we were watching "The West Wing" and he proposed the following corollary: that conservatives believe that they think through issues, and that liberals do not, that instead, they (we) feel our way through them. I think there's a grain of truth to this one, too, but it's just that: a grain. I think that if you look at it in very broad strokes, liberals tend to be more empathetic than conservatives, particularly on social issues and thus on the proper role of government in society.

The conservative viewpoint leans toward limiting the role of government in our lives, which I think is an appropriate and admirable thing. But I think it takes it too far, and tries to look at government as a business. You can't run government as a business, because the two are fundamentally different, and a business is incapable of managing for the good of society, which is government's ultimate role (regardless of how well or how poorly it manages to do so). Government functions to run a country, or a state, or some other civic microcosm. A business runs to make money. The two are diametrically opposed, and thus the functionality of one can't be adopted wholesale to run the other. You wouldn't run a business as a government (at least, not and stay in business very long), and the reverse is also true.

But back to the point about thinking the issues through versus feeling them--I think what gives the thinking versus feeling generalization some merit is that most people don't critically analyze positions and opinions on issues--they accept the pre-digested views of whatever political entity or media outlet they've chosen to align themselves with, whether it's Pat Robertson or George Bush or Bill Clinton or Fox News (there's an oxymoron for you, but that's a topic for another day). Because that's easier. Thinking through the issues takes time, and critical thinking skills, and sometimes even some research or God forbid, having to read something, or listen to the other side to see what valid points they might make. And most people don't want to. Our society has a notoriously short attention span, and the vast majority of political candidates, organizations, and entertainment and news media are focused on getting their message across in a sound byte. So, I would agree with the general concept of thinking versus feeling, but instead of painting it as conservative and liberal, I would apply it to the population as a whole.

I respect the right of others to have differing opinions, but I find it difficult to respect those opinions unless the person has thought them through and can defend them logically. As they said at the conclusion of the presidential debate on last night's West Wing, "What are your next ten words?"

Procrastination

I *so* do not want to work on the website content I need to finish today; it's grossing me out. It's about skin and tissue donation, and man, it's just graphic. Ewww. It reminds me way too much of "Silence of the Lambs," and also I have to separate it out for two different websites with two different audiences. Bleah. So far I've found myriad other tasks to keep me busy since 5 AM. It's 8:30 now--how did that happen!?? I've been at work for almost three hours already, taking time out to get dressed and get the baby to school, and here I haven't even started on this website yet! I did open Dreamweaver and update the file structure, but I guess now I can't put it off anymore. Especially since I don't really have anything to say here.

Disappointing Week with a Bright Spot
I thought I was going to get so much done this week, with my boss and two of the three product managers at our national convention, but no such luck. A nasty bug that Ford had at the end of last week and through the weekend has sidelined me. I managed to get through Monday, but Tuesday morning I got up an hour late, and standing at the top of the stairs, I started thinking about my day--going to Starbucks, the near hour-long drive to the office, spending the day in the office, leaving to pick up Ford at school, going to the fire station to get our car seats checked, going through the evening routine with Ford, and then going to therapy, and I thought "fuck it, I'm sick, I'm goin' back to bed." I felt marginally better after another six hours sleep, and ventured out for the really important drugs--coffee and NyQuil.

Yesterday I made it into the office and spent a little over half the day here; I had to drop some mailing labels off to the Lanes anyway and returned some calls on my way home, and worked from home for about an hour before I collapsed on the couch and did one of those super-deep sleeps where your dreams seem like reality and you wake up severely fogged.

Today I'm down to bad headache and extreme tiredness. I will probably leave a little early today and hope I'm back to full speed tomorrow.

Lisa has been sick all week as well; she started dragging badly Monday afternoon. She was out Tuesday and yesterday, though I saw her briefly online yesterday morning. I haven't seen her at all today and was thinking of calling her to see if we need to send out that urn she's always coveted, but I'm afraid if I call her I will jar her out of badly needed sleep. So I'll just leave her alone.

I haaaaaate being sick. Hate it hate it hate it.

On a brighter note, I did discover that my latest actor crush, Tom Sizemore, has his own show on CBS called Robbery: Homicide Division now, and it's produced by Michael Mann, who I think is one of our most brilliant and underappreciated filmmakers. It's on tomorrow night at 10. Guess what I will be taping tomorrow night at ten, while I'm out on a non-date with my friend Barry. Funny, I read an interview with Tom Sizemore and he comes across as a real jerk. Perhaps I will just admire his pictures and his acting and ignore his disagreeable personality. He has such warm eyes; weird that he comes across like this. Oh well. Fortunately I don't have to like, date him or talk to him in person.