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Funny Bone
Even professionals need an editor
Sent to me by The Girlfriend. Her employer has a corporate subscription to WSJ.com. From an article on the US military considering putting Halliburton work in Iraq out for bid by others (emphasis is hers though I agree wholeheartedly):
Pentagon officials have discussed for months when the Army should revisit KBR’s main Iraq contract. Under the contract, KBR is meant to serve as an all-purpose, quick-fix contractor to fill the military’s needs — everything from running dining halls to providing air-conditioned tents in the desert filled with weight-lifting equipment for the troops. The company is then reimbursed for its expenses, plus a profit margin of 1% and a possible 2% bonus.
Who filled the desert with weight-lifting equipment?!?!
Dry
I’m dry. Dry as salt, dry as sand, dry as the dust bowl (I’m not going to say “dry as a bone” because good bones should be meaty, filled with rich marrow). I just don’t have anything to say.
Well, it’s not that, I have plenty of things to say but I second guess myself into oblivion and end up tongue-tied, which you think for a girl who digs chicks as much as I do would be a good thing but, sadly, it’s not. It’s all potential energy which seems to be getting converted to mass (the diet…not going so hot).
So, I noodle around. I’m taking an SQL class, which is a good exercise in keeping my mind flexible. My personal crackpot theory of life: you start to die when you stop learning new things. Unfortunately, I don’t think that learning something new every day is the key to eternal life. Would that it were so simple.
I’ve also been taking a look back through some previous writing just to reassure myself that I don’t completely suck after my soul crushing foray into a writer’s group online which I previously thought to be a friendly place. Some of the bits and bobs I’ve done nothing with aren’t bad. Some of the ideas I’ve jotted down over the years in the much battered little blue notebook that I’ve transferred from backpack to backpack still have potential. I’ve got an essay I started a couple of months ago about the changing nature of pornography in American society but it needs a polish and I just don’t have the energy. I’ve got another essay about the joys of living among rednecks vs the horror of living among urban hipsters bouncing around in my skull, but it’s not ready for paper just yet. There’s something in there, too, about just why George W. Bush is so much worse than all his predecessors. Better get that one out before the Republican national convention is over.
I could write about my job, but who wants to hear that bitching and moaning again. Hell, even I’m getting tired of it.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m just not sleeping well at all, or the fact that said job (see above) is, I suspect, starting to give me an ulcer. Why now? Simple, at The Non-Profit, I could vent my frustrations with like sufferers. This place, everyone keeps their heads down and does their work and suffers under the delusion that their manager is the only irrational one and they are the only ones doing any work at all.
So, I’m trying a couple of experiments to keep my chin above water. A few weeks ago I asked around, my friends, my family, a couple of co-workers just for giggles, and I found out that largely, even though all these folks don’t share the same temperament, thinking positively is at worst something that “can’t hurt” and at best “the key to everything.” (OK, so I’m paraphrasing here, work with me.)
I get a lot of time to think, and to look around at my world as I walk to and from the Metro every day. Unlike a lot of my fellow commuters, I choose not to block out the sounds of my world with headphones, or like one lady did yesterday block out the entire world by bringing a portable DVD player with her on the subway, but instead I try to pay attention to what is going on around me, to notice the way the light is changing as we move into fall and winter, how thin and sharp it’s getting compared to the lushness of summer when the light here looks like it could almost hold your weight if you dared to fall back into its arms.
I notice the guy who takes his bulldog out for a little romp in the front yard of his apartment building a couple of times a week. It’s a small building, an old rowhouse converted into apartments, with a sign in the front yard that says “Beware of Dog” yet every time I’ve seen him the dog has been all wiggly puppy body usually in response to someone patting his belly.
Then there’s the construction worker guy, looks like he eats babies for breakfast, who’s got the sweetest smile. I see him in the morning too. Last year’s fall social experiment was about the power of smiling and it’s one I’ve taken to heart. Maybe he thinks I’m flirting with him (I’m not) but he smiles back every time I see him and maybe his day is a little brighter because of it. I know mine is.
I try to notice at least one thing a day that makes me smile, that gives me a little boost. Today it was the little girl in the seat behind me on the subway, so excited about looking out the window at all the trains and all the other stuff in the train yard that when you pass it every day just becomes more landscape. Today it was poking about the University of South Dakota’s web site (they nicely provide the information about the dust bowl if you follow the link) and finding they have a juggling club. A juggling club! For some reason it makes me smile.
I guess maybe I had something to write about after all.
Topsy-turvy
You know something in the world is messed up when the guy panhandling at the subway station has an I-Pod.
To me
This day in history
1680 The Pueblo Indians drove the Spanish out and took possession of Santa Fe, NM.
1878 The American Bar Association was formed by a group of lawyers, judges and law professors in Saratoga, NY.
1912 Arthur R. Eldred became the first American boy to become an Eagle Scout. It is the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America.
1945 U.S. President Truman ended the Lend-Lease program that had shipped about $50 billion in aid to America’s Allies during World War II.
1959 Hawaii became the 50th state. U.S. President Eisenhower also issued the order for the 50 star flag.
1963 In South Vietnam, martial law was declared. Army troops and police began to crackdown on the Buddhist anti-government protesters.
1984 Clint Eastwood was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1992 NBC News fired Authur Kent two weeks after he refused an assignment to war-torn Croatia.
1998 Samuel Bowers, a 73-year-old former Ku Klux Klan leader, was convicted in Hattiesburg, MS, of ordering a firebombing that killed civil rights activist, Vernon Dahmer, in 1966.
2002 In Pakistan, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf unilaterally amended the Pakistani constitution. He extended his term in office and granted himself powers that included the right to dissolve parliament.
Oh, yeah, and I showed up.
Happy birthday to me!