Telling stories: Why I will probably never be invited to give a TED talk

I was waiting in line for a drink with AD and I said, "I started drinking whiskey recently.  It makes me taciturn, angry and unable to sleep, so I will probably stop."

He paused and then started laughing at me for telling the shortest story in the world.  X. Y. Z.

Totally fair.

As a child I wanted to grow up to be so many things.  A ballerina.  A janitor.  A school teacher.  An archaeologist.  A historian.  A doctor.  A biologist.  An activist.  A mountain climber.  A jockey.  A pioneer.  A vet.  A mother.  A rockstar.  An actress.  A member of G-Force.  A figure skater.  Eliza Bennet.  Laura Ingalls Wilder.  The list goes on and on.  A writer.

I wanted to write stories.  Didn't write any.  I just wanted to.  Much later in life, I tried my hand at Nanowrimo and discovered that I suck at fiction.  In much the same way I cannot tell a joke to save my life, there was a reason that I never wrote stories, I don't know how.

I would go to write-ins where other people would talk about their plot and how the characters were taking on a life of their own and how much they enjoyed it.  This did not happen to me.  I found myself desperately trying to either figure out how ducks quack so that I could write about quacking ducks convincingly or stealing observations and ideas and snippets and thoughts and conversations from the day to day of my life as it was happening.  If I had a tuna sandwich, so did the characters in my novel.

It was devastating.

Even so, I sign up for Nanowrimo almost every year and I have never finished.  The first time, I finished the word count but not the story.  Since then it's been a boulevard of abandoned word documents.  I considered reading about tropes to see if I could use a bunch of tropes to choke out a story.  They apparently only come in a few flavors.  November is right around the corner and I will try yet again this year.

Maybe I will string together a series of uninteresting and very, very short stories like:

He was going to go to the movies but then felt a sore throat coming on and decided to stay home.  The End.

She wanted a milkshake really badly so she went to McDonald's and got one.  The End.

Again and again for 50,000 words.  An uninteresting book that even I would not read but I will try to write.

The line that keeps coming back to me from Mansion Con

This is a paraphase/misquote: 

"She decided to take awkward lemons and make awkward lemonade."

-Alex Edelman

Professional Charm

If the men of New York were as charming as her waiters and bartenders, I would fall in love and have my heart broken, every second of every day.

The Pursuit of Happiness?

Facebook, why am I the last to hear about this:

"In terms of happiness, sex is better than money, and having sex once a week instead of once a month is the "happiness equivalent" of an extra $50,000 a year."

And why did I not hear of it from you?

I heard tell of it from Benjamin Jackson's talk at Ignite NYC 15.

It was also in the guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/24/moral-case-for-sex-before-marriage

Intriguing.  I would like to see the study that this observation comes from.  I am sure there must be caveats to this conclusion.

I cannot help but assume that earning an extra $50,000 would make a person a lot happier.  But having never earned an extra $50,000 I can only imagine.  I can only hope that this was a part of the experiment/study.  In reading about this, my first question is about how happy the money makes you as opposed to the sex.  Then again, it might explain why I look back fondly on my grad school years despite the pittance that I was making back then.

The "intimate lifestyle product designer" (I heart this euphemism) Lelo created a poster in the same vein on the beneficial-ness of getting it on: http://www.graphs.net/201209/impact-of-sex-on-career-and-health.html

Although one would think that the pleasure gained would be enough in itself and other justifications or reinforcements would not be necessary or surprising.

Seeing these two pieces a week or two ago might have affected a decision made this past weekend.

The counter balance to all this sex and happiness is stumbling on an article in the New Yorker entitled: "The Rise of Drug-Resistant Gonorrhea."  New York Magazine not mincing words summarized the story: "Super Gonorrhea Here to Ruin Blow Jobs Forever"

Plus, it's probably not enough to have more sex.  It probably also needs to be good sex.

So if you decide to pursue happiness, do it respectfully, lovingly, safely, and with gusto, Kids.

Typo of the Day

The typo of the day was to type "Friend" instead of "Fried."

I had friend chicken for lunch.  I love friend chicken.  I spend a lot of time thinking about friend chicken.  Friend chicken is not always kind to me.  Sometimes it give me chest pains.  Sometimes it causes me to feel a sharp ache in my side, probably my gall bladder protesting.  But I still love it, the friend chicken.

Reading the above makes me feel like a puritan with an unhealthy fixation on poultry.

Yes, I know based on the previous blog post that the friend chicken and I ought to part ways.  What.  I took two leftover pieces home with me.  Those of us from the Year of the Dog are loyal.  We do not abandon our friends.

Commuter Courtesy

I have had two ideas in my head for a while.  The first is Sunday dinner and the second is Karaoke Brunch.

I tried to set up my very first Karaoke Brunch today.  It was a spur of the moment thing and it was a party of two.  JK and I.  The notice was too short.  And I have been having very bad luck with putting together social outings of late.  But hey, for an only child a party of two is a par-tay.

We met at Craft Bar.  Had brunch and then relocated to bellow out some songs.  We drove people out of the bar.  I felt a little bit bad about this.  But what can you do.  If you go to a karaoke bar for drinks, it's likely that you will be surrounded by people who sing.  If you want drinks without karaoke, go to a different kind of bar.  Wine bar, Sports bar, Dive bar, Tapas bar.  Really the options are endless.

And because JK is on the verge of a juice fast she was plotting her last meal pre-fast.  She wanted to go to the Bobwhite Lunch and Supper Counter.  It was delicious.  Their fried chicken is quite good.  The sides are also very good.  The staff was friendly and cool.  The tunes were good.

Then we got dessert.  Pecan Pie Bread pudding with a salted caramel sauce and whipped cream topping.  It was so good.  But I was stuffed to the gills by this point.

We walked a bit, stomachs uncomfortably full - to the point of bursting.

I got on a very crowded F train and a woman insisted that I take her seat.  "I can tell that you're pregnant," she said, so very kindly.  I was mortified and too embarrassed to confess the truth.  That it's a biological impossibility.  That I have not been visited by an angel, a swan, or a bull.  I mean it's possible that she knows something that I don't and I am carrying some immaculately conceived human inside me.  But Occam's razor suggest that it's more likely that I am carrying the result of eating too much food in a seven hour period.

This is the third time someone has offered me their seat on the train in the past week.  I was puzzled at this but had no idea that it was because of my big belly.  Mortifying.  I texted JK about this and her reply was "You are giving birth to a chicken baby!"  My friends.  So supportive.

So I need to: 

1. stop wearing miniskirts and the like

2. start wearing mumus

3. exercise

4. diet

5. stop eating fried chicken

6. make a t-shirt with a circle around my belly that is labelled "Not a Baby"

And hang my head in shame.  When I got up from my seat to exit the train, I put my hand on my back and leaned back a little bit to try to keep up the pretense of a pregnancy.  I should have just confessed to my sins.

Alternately, I could eat more fried chicken ("I'm eating for two.") and be unscrupulous.  See if people will also let me cut in line.  "Move aside people, pregnant lady coming through!"  See if I can consistently get people to offer me their seat on the train or the bus.  See if people will help me carry heavy things up the subway steps.

Happy to Make Your Acquaintance

I think I have finally gotten enough sleep.  I am giddy for some unknown reason.  I cannot explain it.  I woke up thinking that I really like the people who I know.

I tried to put on a face of makeup and probably look like a pink faced clown.  I had a bowl of cereal and brought snacks to work.

The sun is shining.  I am planning to spend too much money on lunch.  I am unable to write or speak coherently and I am slightly obsessed with the cheesy Daniel Powter song "Had a Bad Day."  which one would think would make me gloomy but it does not.

It's not even noon yet.  So things could turn.  But it's been a while.  So it seems like this inexplicable moment deserved a post.

The kindness of strangers

The hotel staff left me a note wishing me "Alles gutte zum geburtstag" along with a box of peanuts and a split of brut.  Which is a little strange.   I don't recall mentioning my birthday at any time to anyone at the hotel.  Besides which, my birthday was almost 2 weeks ago.

That being said, when I shake off my jaded, skeptical and suspicious layers, I will admit that it was a pleasant surprise.  Ever so sweet.

Me, Getting Bitchier by the Minute

I used to have a lot of ideas.  I was and am in love with ideas.

But I now see that having an idea and finding a way to make it happen are two very different things.

The theory is of limited help in the execution.  The execution is the hard part.  You get smacked in the face by reality and the unexpected and unanticipated all the time.

Sometimes you can focus on the big things and let the little ones slide.  The itty bitty gritty details.  Some details are your preference, your ego, your attachment to, or your neurosis about what you are doing.  They are a flourish that does not actual progress your plan.  The sooner you let go of them or determine the sufficient benchmark, the better.

But often very small things, minor things that seem hardly to matter can undo and derail you.  Bring your work to a screeching halt.  It's not always clear how to distinguish the two types of details - how to identify the priority, outside of error and accident.

You can't watch everything.  You can't watch everyone.  You can't do everything.  You can't anticipate everything.  Still, the more of the operational, progressing stuff that you can nail down, the more energy and attention you will have to deal with the unexpected shit that comes flying at you fast and furious.  You can focus on what is necessary.

If the shit does not fly, so much the better.  You can relax and enjoy.

When things do go askew, I do not give two shits whose fault it is.  That is a waste time, energy and emotion.  Time, energy and emotion better spent fixing it/solving it.

Identifying blame is insufficient to the action of the moment and, hey, shit happens, there are inevitable slips and glitches.  The effort spent covering your ass and not pitching in, speaks volumes.

If the problem is recurrent or of a significant severity, it could be an indication of a deeper underlying issue that needs to be addressed there might be the need for an explanation and understanding of what happened as a first step towards either solving the problem or readjusting your approach.  If it is a sign that the whole project is irretrievably flawed, it is worth discussing whether to abandon it.

But in the moment, with the task at hand, let's set that and any accompanying emotion aside and just get the damn thing done.