Writing

General posts about writing

Follow the links and make your day a little richer

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Michael’s analogy between the ultra-precious video game tokens of his youth and the concept of value in his current life is a great read, especially if you remember how priceless those tokens really were.

I’ve said before that I’m not a fan of people apologizing for their lack of blogging, but here is one brilliant exception.  The Wuc always makes things funny, but follow her into the doldrums as she describes “The elastic gave out in my blogging undies and they’ve been languishing around my ankles for some time now.”

Claire sets her goals for 2012, and you can’t help but be taken in by her optimism.  Go Claire!

You know I’m a pushover for language, for absurd vocabulary.  I just couldn’t resist this post.

Sarcasm is a great device for making a point.  Though not a new topic, still, a well-written account of how we shouldn’t treat grandma.

I can relate only too well to this piece, and I’m guessing I’ve reached this point many years earlier than the author.  A good reminder of what can happen if we let ourselves succumb to the fear of aging, or, if read another way, permission to tone things down as you move well beyond the age where you think you’re invincible.

I’m sure you’ve figured out by now how much I love Graham’s perspective.  His take on culture shouldn’t be missed as we head into the New Year.

Heat Waves

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I just spent a few days back home.  I think I’ll always consider Wisconsin home, even though I’ve lived away longer than I ever lived there.  It’s been almost twenty years since I officially left home, almost 17 here in the Bay Area, and although I love the way the Northern California climate spoils me, there’s something reassuring about the cold of a Wisconsin winter.  It reminds me who I am, though my ability to capture what that means is rather like watching my breath freeze and disappear every time I exhale in the frozen air.

As I was leaving California, I couldn’t believe how bad my timing was – we were about to have a heat wave here, and the temperatures were going to be in the 70s, while I boarded a flight to the frozen tundra, bracing myself for the deep cold.  Turns out, though, there was a bit of a heat wave in Wisconsin, too.  It was in the 40s almost the entire time I was there.  The first day, though, the temperature hovered around 20.

While I’ve lived through many days significantly colder than that, 20 degrees is just cold enough to make you stiffen, to feel sharp pinpricks on exposed skin when the wind blows, and to curse the fact that you don’t have gloves or a hat to help fight back the advance of  invisible frozen fingers that grip you and hold you stiff as a board until you find some relief in the heat of a car or a warm living room.  Living through that kind of cold, day in and day out, breeds a sort of toughness, and comes with a warped sense of pride – it has something to do with survival, I think.  Or maybe I only see it that way because of the distance I now have.

I called my dad to wish him a Happy Birthday after I got home today, and I mentioned our Northern California heat wave.  He lives in Northern Illinois, and I wasn’t home long enough to visit him.  He said, “Well, we’re having a heat wave here, too, really.  It’s been in the 40s and we haven’t even had two inches of snow this year.”  “That’s nuts,” I replied.  “Well, it doesn’t hurt my feelings any,” he said, to which I began to laugh.  He joined me, both of us chuckling at the words he had chosen.  “I”m getting too old for snowmobiles, I sure as hell don’t want to shovel it, and I damn well hate to drive in it,” he continued.  “So it can stay this way as far as I’m concerned,” he finished.  And he’s lived in it all of his 59 years.

I often wonder why people stay in the harsher parts of the world when there are places more temperate, where Mother Nature is more accommodating, less of an adversary.  Then I go back to the cold.  I breathe it in deeply, very deliberately feeling the way it freezes the passageways it follows into my lungs, and a sense of familiarity settles in.  It’s that very cold comfort that reminds me of my roots, my family, my heritage, and I realize again that it’s home, and though I wasn’t meant to stay there, not everyone likes to leave home.

Grass Phobia Girl turns 30

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December 30 is Grass Phobia Girl’s birthday, and this year, it was her golden birthday – being that she turned 30 on the 30th.  Her younger sister was determined to create a birthday bash that would knock her socks off, and last through the entire New Year’s weekend.  I partook only in the actual birthday part of the festivities, since I am no longer 30, and cannot party for multiple days as easily as I might once have been able to.  Grass Phobia Girl and her friends are known to be some serious lovers of fun, all things inappropriate, excessive celebration, and lots and lots of alcohol.  And cupcakes.  Let me explain.

Invitation, part 1

Bon Voyage Invite, Part 1

Grass Phobia Girl’s sister works in an admirable sector of the non-profit world, focused on bringing educational and job opportunities to those whose tough lives have made it difficult for them to figure out how to accomplish those things after high school – if they made it through high school, to begin with.  On the side, though, she has a cupcake making business, and bakes some killer desserts.  Often, Grass Phobia Girl is roped into helping with the baking, the decorating, and even the delivery and set up of creative cupcake displays.

Little sister recently set up a fake job, which was part of the overall birthday surprise scheme.  It just so happened that she landed a job to make cupcakes for a couple in a nearby town that was heading off for their honeymoon in Paris.  So, the theme of the cupcakes was French – Bon Voyage.  The cakes themselves were dark, baked with Guinness, and the frosting made with Bailey’s Irish Creme.  Fondant decorations included the French flag and little baby croissants.  The party was scheduled for the 30th.  Little did she know, Grass Phobia Girl was decorating cupcakes dedicated to the loss of her youth.

Meanwhile, little sister sent invitations to the rest of us – these brilliant cards and balloon you see here.  We were to send photos of ourselves indicating whether we would attend the party or not, with the use of the balloon as a key prop.  There were some real zingers sent in.

Bon Voyage Invite, Part 2

When we arrived at the party location, it turned out to be a huge empty house on the island of Alameda.  Little sister arranged for food, lots and lots of alcohol, a photographer that took pictures prom-style while attendees adorned themselves in feather boas with elbow length black gloves, and wielded a baguette in ways no baker ever intended.  The empty living room turned into a dance floor, and the kitchen was a help-yourself bar with more jugs of alcohol than I could count, and a fridge full of mixers for the the wimps that couldn’t just suck down the liquor straight.  A couple kegs outside invited a keg-stand competition, which I’ve never actually seen before, but became a willing party to – it was my job to hold up the legs of the person competing with Grass Phobia Girl.  We won.

RSVP by Balloon

Grass Phobia Girl arrived with boyfriend and little sister, to a house full of screaming friends and family who’d already been drinking for an hour or two.  She was truly shocked – friends had flown in from around the country, and she really had bought the whole cupcake catering story.  Little sister and some friends made a movie – a dark and ridiculous film noir style flick, in which the detective goes on a dangerous investigation to try to determine what happened to Grass Phobia Girl’s youth.  The film includes lots of cigarette smoking, lewd references, a car accident, implied affairs, and in the end, a shocking murder.  Little sister is the one doing the murdering – she murders in order to get big sister to stop hanging out with other people and spend more time at home watching TV – their biggest shared passion.

Bon Voyage Balloon

Happy New Year, and may you see many vegetable people in 2012

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I was just glancing through “Old Friend from Far Away,” thinking it’s been a while since I just wrote randomly from a writing prompt.  I stopped on a page titled “Radish.”  The first paragraph opens:

“This is a wish. When you are writing about a radish, that you and the radish meet face to face. That you stay specific, present, and direct and through your true intention the radish becomes RADISH. You instantaneously summon the particular and also give life to the essence of that buried root plucked up red and edible.”

It’s good advice, I think, as I’m typing it out now, but that’s not what came to mind when I began to read.  I got distracted by memories of vegetable people.  I went through an odd phase a long time ago, when I couldn’t help but compare people to vegetables.  Visually, I mean.  One night, I was sitting at IHOP with my roommate and best friend, and someone walked in and I said, “Doesn’t that woman look like broccoli?”  My friend worked hard not to spit out his coffee, but in the end, he agreed that she looked surprisingly like a stalk of broccoli.  I can’t picture her anymore or I’d describe it for you better.  You might think people don’t really look a lot like vegetables, and maybe you’re right.  But, I challenge you to give it some thought.  You may not always see a vegetable when you look at a person, but you will be surprised how often you do, if you just think about it.  Leave your mind open to the fact that people can resemble, or at the very least, remind you of, vegetables.  Or other foods, if you need a broader target.

In the next few days, you might find yourself noticing that someone with a mottled complexion makes you think of frozen mixed vegetables, or someone that stands stiffly brings to mind a carrot.  Perhaps a balding man reminds you of a peeled onion, or someone else with spiky hair makes you think of the root end of a green onion.  The point is, allowing yourself the extra space to think about random things like this might make you smile just a little more frequently, and we could all stand to do that.  My New Year’s resolution is to see more vegetable people this year.

I haven’t given it a lot of thought until this minute, but if I had to classify a few of the characters I’ve introduced you to here, I’d say this.  My partner most resembles a stalk of celery (she’ll probably want to smack me for this comparison, but I mean no harm).  Barefoot boss – he’s a fingerling potato.  Gopher-man, hmm, I’ll have to come back to him – a cabbage, maybe.  Long Back Guy, an unripened Fresno chili.  The Guatemalan, a pineapple.  Cat Power, a roma tomato. Grass-phobia girl, a crimini mushroom.  Me, I probably look sort of like an eggplant.  Happy New Year!

Long Back Guy’s Thanksgiving Story

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One day last week, I wandered into the kitchen for my 8th cup of coffee around lunch time, and found Long Back Guy there.  I mentioned I was going back to Wisconsin soon, and he shivered – violently, actually.  “I am not so good with the cold,” he said, and proceeded to tell me a story of Thanksgiving.

“Long back, before I was married, on Thanksgiving holiday, me and some other Indian guys decide to go camping.  Thanksgiving is nothing to us – we’re from India – it’s US holiday, but we get four day weekend, anyway.  Camping seems like fun adventure!  So, five of us, we choose to go to Grand Canyon.  No idea that it would be cold.  I mean REALLY cold.  Twelve degree!  Do you know how cold that is for Indian person?!”  I smiled at the thought of it, excited to see where this story would go.

“Thing is, no one had any equipment.  We didn’t know to get equipment.  We had cheap, flimsy tent and nothing else.  I was only one that brought warm sleeping bag.  The rest had cheap, flimsy sleeping bag, too!  It was so cold we could not get food to cook on fire.  The heat couldn’t reach from the coals to the chicken.  The cold took it away first!”

Now, I am laughing.  I’ve worked with plenty of Indian guys, and I know how they tend to hang out in groups while they are single, and they really want to try all these American things, but they do them only with each other – so they have no idea what they’re getting themselves into.  They are resourceful, though, as Long Back Guy’s story illustrates well.

“We ate by pouring Bacardi on chicken and touching coals so it would flame up.  Over and over and this works to cook the chicken.”

Now, I’m hysterical.  I am picturing these guys hunched over a tiny little baby fire that they can’t really get burning, dumping all their alcohol onto a few kabobs, turning them to charcoal in an attempt to get something edible out of it.  They should have just drank the damn liquor – it would have kept them warmer!

“Eventually, we go to bed.  It is so cold in the night, it is painful, and remember, I have good sleeping bag, but still it is so painful!  I wake up in the middle of the night, maybe 3 am, and see one of my friends.  He is sitting in the corner of the tent, legs crossed, hugging himself and rocking forward and back.  I hear him mumbling out loud, saying something over and over.  “What is wrong, man?” I ask.  “I am going to die,” he says.  “I am going to die in this cold, and I am praying to all the Gods to keep me from dying!””

Needless to say, no one died from the cold that night, but they certainly have a funny story to tell about their bachelor days when they were still new to America.

Long Back Guy and his Adjustment to American Life

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Long Back Guy is someone that I really enjoy working with.  He is smart, excitable (in a good way that makes me smile), and he happens to be really, really funny.  He is from India, and has been in the US for 6 or 8 years, I think.  When we were out at our holiday lunch last week, he shared the story of his first experiences here.  At the table was Long Back Guy, myself, QA Guy (who probably needs another name, but I haven’t written about him yet, so I haven’t thought of one yet), and CEO.

Long Back Guy was pretty fresh out of college when he got the opportunity to come to the US, and like any smart young man anticipating a complete change in culture, and wanting very much to succeed upon his arrival in the US, he spent the month prior to his arrival “studying Dallas,” the place he was headed to.  He says he studied it and studied it, like he would have studied any subject he was assigned in school.  He spent hours learning about Dallas.  I’m not sure there is that much about Dallas that could occupy me for as many hours as Long Back Guy spent on it, but I have to admit, I don’t like the place.

“When I got off from the plane, I couldn’t understand.  I was so much confused!  It didn’t look like New York,” he said,”and I thought everything in US was like New York with buildings everywhere, miles in all directions!”

“Seems like your study materials were pretty crappy,” QA guy responded as we all laughed.

Long Back Guy continued.  “Dallas is not buildings.  Dallas is very flat, no one walking anywhere, only highways, and I never saw any people at all.”  Long Back Guy’s eyes are big now, and his voice becomes more and more emphatic as  he seems to relive his initial incredulity.

“I stayed in an apartment in downtown and saw no one for the whole weekend I was there.  Maybe a couple people came in or out of the building, but it was like ghost city!”

“Wait,” I said.  “You were only there for a weekend?  I thought you were going to live there.”

“Yes, me too.  But, after all my studies, my company called me and said, now you are going to California.”

I personally am glad they sent him to California, because now I know him, and I have a feeling he’s happier here than he would be in Dallas.

Check ’em out – more good reading

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As he so often does, Graham shares an enlightening perspective – this time on the evolution of Christmas.  [Graham – I promise I’m not a stalker. I just really love your writing and your perspective!  I often have to start my next ‘great links’ post before I finish the one in progress because I have more than one of your posts I want to share.  Maybe that does make me a stalker…]

Check out this brief history of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary – had I known about this before Christmas, I might’ve asked for the original.  I bet it’s fascinating.

This list of the top ten writing blogs for 2011 is a great resource.  I am already a reader of Terrible Minds, but now have a bunch more to add to my list.

I only recently stumbled across Millie Ho’s blog, but I’ve become a fast fan.  Even this piece that she shares as an example of something she seems to think wasn’t great, really is great.

My office holiday lunch

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Last week, our CEO announced that the company didn’t have enough money to do a real holiday party, so instead, we would all go out to lunch together this week.  Our office manager proceeded to send an email telling us where we would be going for lunch, and asking everyone to reply only with their preference of date – Tuesday or Wednesday.  He was very precise in his instructions.  “Please reply back to me only with preferred date.”  Granted, he could have meant, “Send your reply only to me, do not reply to everyone on this email chain.”  Whatever his meaning, it didn’t matter anyway.  The average office worker doesn’t have the self-control to only do what the email says, especially when a restaurant is involved.  A minor argument ensued.

One guy (a transplant from China that now works with us in the US) was particularly disappointed at the lunch plans.  He emailed back to everyone with this:

If we really have to eat Indian buffet, I am not a big fan of it.

My little suggestion is that we should try the [ABC of India]

In 123 4th St

At least it has a better rating than [XYZ of India] in the yelp.com

We also have one woman in the office that is from India.  To disgruntled guy, she immediately retorted:

Hi All,

I know, which the better place to eat Indian food as I am from India myself. Don’t go by the rating on Yelp. I have eaten at [ABC of India] can say that It’s worst I ever had.

[XYZ of India], was previously “Bombay Something or Other” food was good then, not sure how it is now. Anything other than [ABC of India] would be good choice.

It’s very clear this woman is from India.  You’d never guess anything else, so why she had to assert that she was from India escapes me.  In the end, though, we did go to the original restaurant proposed by Office Manager and endorsed by Indian Woman.

When it came time to go, though, none of us really wanted to go.  That’s the thing about holiday parties – you don’t really feel like going, but if the company didn’t plan something, everyone would be pissed off.  So, we went.  It took an inordinate amount of time to figure out how people were going to group up into cars to share rides, but we eventually got there and dove into the Indian Buffet.  The CEO decided to sit at my table, which meant our conversation was initially a little stiff.  Another guy at the table who I really enjoy working with, the Indian guy who always says “long back” when he means “a long time ago,” decided to tell us a few stories of his arrival to the U.S. from India.  Pretty soon I was in stitches.  The stories were funny on their own, but this guy is funny and his ability to laugh at himself is wonderful.  More soon…

Category obsessions

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I am obsessed with organizing things.  Last week, I finally figured out that I could display my categories as nested, so I promptly went about creating new categories, regrouping everything, and applying new categories to my 100+ posts.  I loved every minute of it!  Now, when I glance at the navigation pane on the right hand side of the screen, though, I see too many categories with only one post in them – and that’s starting to bug me, too.  Neurotic, I know, but that’s not really news, is it?  See here and here if you think it is.

So, for the moment, I am going to to use my own category list as writing prompt inspiration.  We’ll see how it goes…  First on the list – Cocktails.

I am a cocktail sort of person.  I like wine – drink it at dinner sometimes, but I absolutely abhor beer.  Cardinal sin for someone that grew up near Brew City, I know, but it is what it is. One of my favorite cocktails is the mai tai.  Now, if you’ve never had a really good mai tai, you won’t know that the drink is not so much about the fruit, but about the rum – but, I’ll forgive you for that.  For now.

Interestingly, the best mai tai I ever had was at a restaurant in St. Louis, of all places.  Perhaps more significant was that I was at the restaurant for a work function with my clients at the time – a major beer brewing bunch.  We’re at this super fancy restaurant with lots of marketing bigwigs in attendance, and at each end of the table sits a big metal tub on a stool, full of some of the cheapest beer you can find in the world, among a hill of crushed ice.  I was supposed to drink it – we all were.  Even if you hate the products of your clients, when you work in marketing, you must pretend you love them anyway.  If you drool over them, that’s even better.

Lucky for me, one of the people at the client also disliked beer.  She whispered to me at one point.  “I hate beer.  But I’ve found that if I take a beer, put it in front of my plate, act like I’m drinking it now and then, that’s enough.  I can even sneak in a cocktail on the side and no one will really say much.”  With that, I quietly ordered my mai tai, and as I said – it was the best I’ve ever had, so I’m glad I took the risk.

To help me illustrate my point about just how misunderstood the mai tai is, read this post.  It will set you straight.  If you like rum, and you’ve never had a classic mai tai – try one.  You won’t be sorry you did.

Gopher-man delivers

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So, last weekend, I had a huge software release pending and was waiting on gopher-man to get it ready to deploy.  Besides the fact that gopher-man works slowly, he is very pessimistic, and always acts as though there is no way he has enough time to do what he needs to do.  It’s a stressful job, but we all have stressful jobs in this industry, and he makes me want to just throw my hands up in the air and walk away.  The Thursday before the deployment, I stopped by to see how he was doing.

“Oh, it’s awful.  There are so many errors.  I’ve tried to run the build over and over and over and it’s taking forever,” he moaned.

I paused, took a deep breath.  “I’m sorry it’s such a pain.  That sounds frustrating.  Do you think you’ll be done by tomorrow?”

“Define done,” he says.

[Level of effort required to contain my frustration increasing steadily.]

“Um, done.  As in, finished.  Ready to hand off to China to deploy on Saturday.”

“Do we have a choice?”  His question is equal parts sarcasm and a misplaced glimmer of hope that I’ll tell him we might have a choice.

“No. We don’t.”

“What can I do then?  I have no choice.”

“Well, if you need some help, I’d rather know that now and see if I can’t find someone to assist instead of find out tomorrow that we can’t get this done.”

Defeated, he sulks, saying “There’s no one that can help.”

“Maybe [a senior guy who doesn’t normally do this, but can figure out just about anything] can help.  Let me see what I can do.” I try to reassure him, as I walk away biting my tongue.

I get gopher-man some help and let them work it out over the rest of that afternoon.  Friday, though, still no final product.  I do get a reassuring email from the person that normally do this work (excuse me – broken English almost slid past me) – does this work – and is away on family business to tell me that it is “all sorted, and we’ll be fine.”  He’s from New Zealand and a very reassuring type.  Sure enough, Saturday morning I wake up to the news that we’re ready to go.  Score one for gopher-man.

Not only does he finish, but that night, when I expect to work from 4pm til 8am the next morning monitoring the deployment happening in China, gopher-man’s work was so well done that we save hours, and I am actually done by 2:30 am instead.  Senior executives at the company and at our client say it is the least eventful and most on-time deployment they have ever had, even though it is also one of the largest, which is exactly as it should be.  Score one for the whole team.