My Desktops Frighten Me ... old poems distract

I save so much for a quick return that chaos ensues. My Desktop resembles my life.  So, I distract myself . I find some words set down nearly a decade ago when I imagined a poet within. Imagine I must.

p.s. it was not you after all!

The song refrained
I want
to TAKE YOU
FOR GRANTED.
And I
Realized that that is a quality I seek
In a life partner
And you seem to want the same
things, the security of cuddle, a generosity
in deciding upon another's needs
The reliable, voice embrace
For sweeter sleep.

I am
attracted in my marrow to a gentleness
In you

So unexpected that I
do not want to disappoint you
or me. 

You proceed with every caution
yet remain attentive like
an eager once starved lover:
To taste, to savor, to imagine
a picnic or festival or dinner
for two

I want a smart man, a man's
Man. I fail to question these qualities
Of you 'cause I need
a father for my son. I desire
To be

The sum of my parts, my
past resides in me and him.
Would that I could
speak of beauty, fear and for
-nication.  And, yes
I would rather sip the wine
With you

Because when I drink
I want to Take You
For Granted
if it is you
That I am to Cease
refraining from.
We wait

stomachs talking
later to drift to sleep
on pillows that remain
our own.

 

 ~~

So where to from here? I will try tasks again. I did promise to find the poem Deerkill, an even older vintage of recycled words and pass it along to a hunter. We discussed guns because that is happening, talk of guns, in light of the Newtown shooting -- claiming innocence and rattling our sense of humanity.

Deerkill

traffic inching, mind rushing
anxious tempos that traffic does not halt
then doe in a heap -- as carcass comes into view.
already, traffic news warns
deerkill is slowing traffic to a standstill on a daily commute paved through wild life, far to the south,
same route
others are slowed by 12 hundred pound alligator
sunbathing

slowed by innocent
crashing
over white line
into white tail
waking stomach, mind, recall --
the men in Vermont had a deer camp
and bright orange vests that kept them
from shooting each other.  This I remember
as the topic turned
to guns
words
declared over beer
Using guns
against deer is shamefully unfair.  A deer
will feed my family for a winter, maybe more
It is a sport.  It is an industry.  It is food.  It is
an excuse to own a gun.
Opinions emerge.  Positions unify.  Energy clarifies.  Stark disconnects
speak through a congested atmosphere.  The private
school down the road has a rifle range - good
marksmen get credit toward graduation.  A boy
I knew got credit, he said he would never
kill deer

It does not take expertise to kill.
Passion, fear, retaliation are killers.
When paths cross, bullets, roads, knives,arrows
cut to the quick .  The archer
had killed deer many times
with a bow and arrow.  Said this was more fair for the doe
then guns...he trained his aim for hours, days, weeks, seasons
of deerkilling,
this hunter without a gun.  He could not buy a
gun, he knew accidents happen.
He knew.

I saw a deer by the highway shoulder
out of range of guns, arrows, and for the moment
cars
I looked back as traffic slowed over concrete, the super trail filled with rushing hearts
stopped
by one dead doe.  Accidents
happen. Can't buy a gun. Can't practice for credit.
Fear stops me. Like the alligator, my blood runs to warm
in the sun.

55+ Unite

A few days ago I was gifted a book.  Yesterday, I read it. Today, I reflect.

It was a light, yet heavy, read. I have not done the related self-development tasks -- may have done it, in my own way, before. 

I recall being inspired at age 50 to develop my resume according to life-cycles. I am now 59.  When in the daily world of business, I had different expectations of my peers, both male & female, based on similar cycles. 

 

1. Transition to World of Work. (2 yrs.);
2. Increase Business Knowledge (3yrs.);
3. Specializing (5 yrs.);
4. Balance Family & Work (8 yrs.);
5. Hard & Soft Skills Integration & new learning (5 yrs and ongoing.)

In fact, I was proudest of the men who consciously experienced #4 and felt somewhat sad for the females whose life choices made this a big "skip".  As a resume, the idea failed; but it is my career profile. It does not assume a zenith and is perhaps more female leaning than Ms. Lussier's Early, Midway,Zenith in that females are more likely to have a broad span of life balancing than their male counterparts.  
The core theme of 55+ Unite seems to lean toward defining oneself with ones work or work related aspirations, maybe more than the author intended. It also presumes having girl friends as a innate part of womanhood - which may not be true of all women.

Some Ironies and thematic disconnects:
Page 4 "Aging professional women are encouraged to spend their final career chapter in low-paying, or no paying, charity jobs - to give back to the community and maybe rediscover some artistic skills or smoldering life goals. Nice gig, if you can afford it.

The irony is the conclusion "Nice gig, if you can afford it." 

I have such a gig.  Health insurance affordability will be the driver for how long I can sustain this gig. It is the best job I have ever had if challenges, fun and diversity of community interaction and potential for good are any measure. I know the devaluation of woman was what inspired the 'nice gig" slur of the author -- but I never truly wanted a career -- I have wanted this gig, without the overhead of needing to look for an income producing opportunity "with benefits," for most of my adult life. 

There is a pocket of women nicknamed "bennies" that are locked into unsatisfying careers because their hard working blue collar self-employed husbands can not truly afford family healthcare plans; especially if the work is seasonal. I was/am one of those.  

Stories: 55+ Unite is part memoir, part self-help.  It is a collection of stories thematically strung together based on some research & self-reports. It has value like journaling has value as it can kick-start some healthy reflection. It also reminds me of the challenges of storytelling; a tool that can make ideas stick, an abundance that demands curation to transform information into wisdom and a magical gift of humankind whose potential is still being discovered by artists and geeks. The work of Nancy Durante is particularly informing. She tweets here. 

My LinkedIn Profile states: Effective storytelling often shortens the time travelled from gap  -  to competence -  to action;  in a visceral making-a-difference way.  Therein, I am trying to congeal my business experience with my distractions because that is what business often expected of me -- but I also believe this to be true.  I just do not feel I can do storytelling well enough, myself and I am distracted by the Joy of mixed media.

A few days ago my imprisoned for life nephew asked my sister what had become of my book?  I wonder if he is remembering Kindle, my pass-it forward story drafted in 1976, or Mercy from 1993.  The 1st was distroyed in the real life story underlying the second.  As for the second, I no longer believe in the premise. I recently gave the incomplete manuscript to the real storyteller in the family -- in case he can use any tidbits for his work as a playwright. 

He tells me that I should work some of the ideas I send to him, myself. But I do not think he means Mercy -- but ideas like Meanwhile may have potential.  

So, I have read a book. It has made me complete a blog entry for which I have been delinquent most of 2012. So what of the inertia? What of the unanswered question - what do you WANT to be when you grow up?  And what about the absense of lifelong (or even longtime) friends in the collection of stories that are already fading in memory? What is the value of tweets, and blogs and poems?

This blog was initiated with a life lesson; and part of me feels I live it and part of me feels like a fraud but all of me loves the poem. 

And with this I conclude today's entry.

meanwhile...

On Oct 24th I was about to draft a post called meanwhile.  It was the day after I fractured my left ankle in 3 places.  The title alone which means to me the telling of story "at the same time, but from different places" remained in draft until today. 

If I am to add to the noise, or curate from the chaos, on this idea still far from formalized -- for that is all that it is, or has yet to be, then I need to make some serious changes in the deployment of my time.

Dancing in the Moonlight -- to one's own drummer

I am still shuffling the moments; recalling as much of "what connected" as "what felt out of step". Mostly, I struggle with what compelled me to connect at all and to remain even as others said -- evict.

ynchyldzwyld born 6.23.1953 passed 11.13.2012.  Turns out, part of the mystery is that she was riddled with cancer. She will likely have no obituary; so I will do my best here. Our pets always welcomed her home, Jake and Reilly never causing the 'melee in the ménage' that other arrivals would upon entering. From the very 1st meeting they accepted her, welcomed her pats on their heads; and in Reilly's case an occasional brief belly rub, always with a gentle admonition "I know, I know". The cats did not have long to wait for her to fill their dishes -- when they shared the common area of the kitchen, most often in late evening or very early morning.

 

She preferred second shift when there was work. Most of her last years were spent chasing the temporary agency assignments. In her last month after a concerted 6 months of effort, she secured two assignments, leaving the warehouse call center for one in banking. Maybe the 'coming out of recession' momentum was favoring her.

 

Many of her career years were in banking where her destiny was dynamically linked to rise and fall of the WANG Business Computing. It seemed she had a good decade with discretionary income and a false sense of security and success in the mid-80's. However, her post bankruptcy reinvention was not similarly successful. It might have been if she had not been one of the personal stories of the ATT CT call center shut down (@ 2008 and continuing)  because she was good at technology related customer service.

 

In 1971, ynchyldzwyld graduated from Brunnel HS in Stratford CT. That same year Wang introduced the first word processor, a typewriter with an electronic memory. In the mid-80's to 90's the Banking Industry was WANG, not Big Blue.  As a programmer analyst ynchyldzwyld found a comfortable niche. She was able to succeed in the world in a way that provided comfort to her inner world which would be a riddle to outsiders. The Yearbook quote she selected taken from Stanyan Street & Other Sorrows by Rod McKuen may attest to her awareness that her drummer was uniquely hers.

 

• Poets after all, should walk and be content to take their time.

What I knew most that she was proud of her ability to provide customer service and there is evidence that this was not a misguided self-perception. She loved Earl Grey Tea, gems stones, and technology that could connect her, as close to 24 x7 as possible, to music and could secure secrets.

 

She once said , "People like you do not understand that I am okay being alone." Herein she was making assumptions about my support networks of family et.al. and it may be those misguided assumptions that secured both our distance and intimacies as I experienced being the last person in her life, in the last year of her life. 

 

-- maybe more will untangle, if so more entries will follow.

 

 

Excited, Busy and ...

There is family stuff, weddings and similar life arrangement commitments being made by our now adult children, AND there is our house as the dog's house based on their messaging dissatisfaction with our more complex schedules of late, AND there is making sure I walk daily regardless of the heat -- so as not to be computer bound.

For the better part of 6 weeks I have been onboarding as the Executive Director of WPAA-TV.  This includes needing to learn things I never wanted to like alarm codes and door locks, and what is or is not in the file cabinets. But I can proudly say that there has been more 'community' involvement just in these past few weeks and it has been rewarding work thus far. 

But my personal video projects are once again -- back burnered.

A Wallingford Story with Global Reach

I shared this on my LinkedIN. If you do not have time to watch the whole thing go to about 25 minutes in...

I have been helping others tell their stories; but this particular project from last week is my favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqoD8Ue5JYs
Be inspired.

so where are we about to land...

Made some reconnections and the recipients seem pleased.  Made some new connections, hard to know if they will last. The dust bunnies have been gathered, bagged and prepared for the landfill.  The files have been pulled for refiling in notebooks.  The estate is nearly closed.  I took a bus for $1.30 to return home from New Haven.  It was full of humanity. Fuller than I had anticipated.

Many things have no certain conclusion --- there may be substantial change or more of the same...

Will I be ready for either? One thing I am sure of is that the dogs would prefer more of the same.

you never know where a day will lead to...

There is a gentle rain.  There is a pounding headache. There is a wonder why there has been such disturbance in the Universe. There is anticipation and dogs at my feet.

If compensated for work I would ...

One of the most challenging aspects of this past year is that as I became less able to write healthy checks,  I became more familiar with the works of the organizations I support financially. Within my new limits, I did continue to give. And I have been giving service in abundance.  This has put me in more direct contact with the service of others and more importantly the needs, in need.  I have not discarded the requests for donations and the stack of requests grows and the repeat requests are now coming, some for the 3rd or 4th time, and the phone calls are ever so frequent.

So where would a paycheck go? All those ongoing giving decisions would see a boost and some would become sustaining a.k.a. periodic contributions.   I would resume prior giving levels, or better than before my limited means. In some cases I could give directly. I also want to be supportive of the local giving model established by giveGreater so donations would pass through that portal, ideally during a matching campaign. 

The only new giving I started last year was with DonorsChoose.org. This program is well vetted and the young people are aware that contributions are made to their teacher's projects. I think this kind of giving creates an awareness in our youth that could be transformative.

The other financially aware decision I made this past year was to purchase local food.  I am now a member of 3 CSAs that are located in, or near, my hometown.  

What I have learned is that sustainability is a value and a goal. I do not need compensation to own this value  nor work toward this goal -- but it sure would be nice to be able to write more, and bigger charitable contribution checks.

Whose life am I living? Tone, Time, Taken

Thus far it has been a life of co-creation that has been tempered by the need to survive and inspired by a desire for the next generation to have more opportunity to thrive.  As such the determination of what I want to do has been suppressed nearly to the point of extinction.

Recent attempts at deciphering want have been clumpsy and misguided. Stripping down to the essentials is a process of elimination. So I am reminded that Edison and failed experiments and that failing is a method of elimination.  The Road Not Taken is a poem that always captured my imagination and comes into mind at every occasion with choices.  A poem can say so much but to what avail? However, I do return to some like a homing pigeon hungering for their genius.

I feel like I have lost a decade.  I have not felt a true sense of community in some time.  I physically tremble as I connect in what feels like memory hazes (unclear images overwhelmed by emotion). I tremble this same way when excitedly sharing a story or idea... but these tremors are too infrequent and, dare I say, feared. 

Enough yet-to-be self-awareness distraction. It is time to clear the desktop evidence of a mind allowed to stumlble, discover, wonder and cycle back to things that eventually must get done.

Distracted by pixelating video of Quinnipiac River

mypillow, mythoughts, my my my

I thought of the word lunARTics for one purpose and googled it to find another: LUNARtics  which also had creatures and fine art but a wholly different, delightful feel. I saw the infomercial about mypillow.com and then proceeded to have the most restLESS sleep I have had in month - the power of suggestion. I self talked that I would not log on to the PC today --- I then dismissed the chat. I did the same about riding the stationery bicycle during CBS SUNDAY Morning. That new theory that the Shroud of Turin may be authentic but the "resurrection" an anomoly of the shroud, was interestingly plausible story.  I did read the local paper including this cartoon .

I was looking forward sharing a piece of work - in part to validate my current state of reinvention - but that is on hold maybe indefinitely so there is no link to it here. 

I have lost so many random but seemingly connected thoughts by delaying to login.  Instead I have made DAL with Beet Juice from the local Winter CSA beets and the mint in abundance in my Areogarden. At the momment, there is no one to share this delight with. I can not add a link for you to taste it but I will attest to its goodness, sweeter than any I have had before.  No Pic either because you know what DAL looks like and that rarely can be made into a pretty pic.

The name of this blog is rooted in this story

Today I am reminded of artists, self-proclaimed whom I name by their actions.      

Rape is an atrocity most often committed by men.

It requires a grandiose sense of MEanness.

I have been.

The 1^st time was by a door-to-door preacher.

He professed to be committed to a Universal Calling

Of Ascended Masters and the Mother Prophet. He knocked.

He locked. One hand over my mouth, the other guiding

his missile forcibly between my todays and tomorrows.

“If you are a victim of your goodness” then where

is your protector, my boyhood friend, your husband?

I knew too well if I could scream, it would become a gang coming.

The hours, days, years to follow – like a stroke of insight

they bare witness to cognitive dissonance – the left brain poking at details that the right

brain could no longer associate with life, laughter and  love. 

Rehabilitation is the work of day mares.  Numbness cloaks

secrets in would be truth. Never to be a next time, forever closed until ^...

Taken with the authority of a preacher fox, counselor on family matters.  Come, give voice to loss.

Trust in the Word. And man, bearing the title husband – thrust unwanted to claim my tomorrows.

Pressed against the headboard – colorful words filled my pages. Disconnected like the pornography

that overlay an ethics video. *   This story told once in private to a fox and the other day someone who could believe.

No youthful beauty remains.  Numbness defeats the possibilities.

Yet some days I trust in serendipity and the right brain seeks light and images and music. The art comes.

Words try to protect – cautioning no full disclosure.

* 300 hour linear editing project with footage from Ethics Lectures at Yale that was copied over with the excess of a life of depravity @ 1986. 

The Meaning of Work

I began to wonder these past few weeks, as I do more and more non-income producing work, has my idea of work changed? Was my decision to redirect my life's work energy appropriately timed? What are my daily behaviors telling me about my comfort zone?

I had been defining success as 1) getting the most out of my teams and 2) achieving actionable stakeholder understanding of the relationship between what analysis determined they needed and their concept of desired result. It had appeared to me that the gap between analytical findings and expected results widened; once my employer became a public company whose focus shifted to short-term deliverables within massive merger initiatives.

 

The decision to 'retire' as part of my redirection, seems correct on all counts. Ironically, in a few recent chats with former work associates it was claimed that I left as a Legend.  But I was not thriving as evidenced by my thigh size.

Job preservation can distort results. Analysts with can be compelled to hold mirrors and document reflections; thereby, defining requirements as: What the stakeholder of the hour says they want without triangulating with evidence from observation and data.

 

2011 was the 1st year in 15 that I was not a lynch-pin in the chaos of yearend in which 60% of annual business was processed in 2 months. However, I was actually as much a part of this yearend as any other because my replacement system and mentored peers were navigating the chaos - and it appears with solid results. With my 2011 bonus check now in the bank, I am confident that my most recent income producing work created with a good team was a success.

 

In 2012, I am missing the teamwork. There is not the same level of investment in the outcome, or shared vision, in the pro bono work I have been doing. Nor is there the caliber of talent. I really miss the puzzling out of solutions with a  talented team and I am curious about how I would do in a team in which I was not a senior player. As I look for income producing work, the pragmatist in me sees two things as fundamental to my ability to contribute: 2004 knowledge of media is already old and leveraging what I know is the best means is the 'best' way to make a difference.

 

Experience has shown me that 

• not all ideas are good and few are well informed
• my most instructive teacher was typically a bad result
• most things are iterative, and if they are not, they should be.
• that hitting my head against the wall just caused headaches, not progress

So I am concluding that:

 

Yes, my idea of work has changed in that the goal is no longer daily bread - I am much more invested in the quality and purpose of the outcomes.

 

Yes, my decision to redirect my life's work energy was appropriately timed based on the changes in my former employer’s organization and my goals?

 

And that my daily behaviors are telling me that getting to a place of comfort within uncertainty has been challenging but that I am as capable of success now as I have always been - I just need to clarify what that means now.

 

Fool4Speech

It was 12:01 AM and I welcomed the April 1 2012 trying to see just how foolish the Free Speech Square initiative might be.  I determined that any sign held or otherwise presented can not be read and even the speaker is pretty anonymous given the bright light.  Speech, however, is audible if facing the microphone in the upper right corner of the building.  So I challenged all those not listening to be fools for free speech in Wallingford, CT care of WPAA-TV Free Speech Square after 10 PM initiative. 

Zelebration

Tonight is the night designated to celebrate Z at SCSU but a contagious and cough filled condition keeps me from the gathering in her honor. Zanette was wise, passionate and zealous in life. I was not brave enough to know her better; but I was blessed by my acquaintance with this earth angel who left us earth bound in 2009.

day with odd family moments...

Last week as I loaded ftc videos for play at WPAA.TV some on the topic of scams...it never occurred to me that my mom could be a victim because someone tried to leverage the unusual life of my son to confuse her ... but today it happenned.  And taxes, and credits were another distraction with unusual twists that truly had no relation except in the anxiety that was churned.

But the best part of the day was putting lots of paper in the office paper shredding pile because there was closure on tasks related to being retired from WellPoint effective 3.1.2012.  This decluttering goodness even superceded yesterday's purchase of a just for me item (seen here).  I had promised myself that if the results of my last hurrah project resulted in a good bonus, that I would actually buy myself something.  And the AIP check was in Saturday's mail and it was good (not good enough to cover overtime for the 65+ hour weeks for months and months... ) but enough to call it a win for the system I left behind.

So awkward ups and downs... and now back I go to decluttering.

 

Readiness_and what I miss most

What I miss most from the world of work is teamwork.  The idea of colloboration, bringing different ideas and skills to the table to build or alter some process seems to be something that I truly enjoyed.  My more recent experiences were anticipated to be within teams; but in reality, it was more just do it and see if the reaction is adopt or critique.

Last night, I read the HEMAN, Man From Vermont poem outloud.  I was not alone.  The reading had impact for me and the other listener.  I realized that even in this project that I felt was mine alone to do, working with, or off some-else, was value-added.

So I am once again re-aligning my path.  Where there are not teams, nor team players -- I am walking away.  I will do this with the gifts of solid effort  and output of hundreds of hours of work nicely packaged.

Next_I will focus on removing the clutter. Maybe I will soon have a new teams to be inspired by as we work to create solutions. If not, then dormant projects will be sure to surface other opportunities.

What I am sure of is that I want to contribute to something larger than myself.  I need those contributions to mean more than better stock prices.  But right now -- I have an appointment so it is out the door to see if I can inspire a team to form to better serve its community with storytelling in a language that is not my own.

what day is it...

The question I ask, more accurately blurt out often,  is What day is it? 
Part of me feels there should not be a need to know; and then, there is the world of expectations and connections and schedules that make knowing a must.

I am no longer in a roll out of bed over to the in-house office mode. I am logged in much of the time - but I have not set up an on-line calendar nor effectively mastered the array of to-dos, meetings time et. al. as I determine my own life agenda.  Maybe I should re-establish an on-line calendar. Or, maybe I need a pattern of behavior that enables me to check each day and its *... because I am now on hold pending an explanation to a stranger about my lack of calendar management.  But I have had the most enjoyment in the loss of time, the meandering into new knowing and exploration of the talents and ideas of others. 

*What is the its of these days: accomplishments, tasks, metrics, lists monitoring what I ate, or weight not lost, or minutes not walked or water not drunk... yes it appears I have gotten into a slump of things missed ... so what have I done with my days? 

As I try to recall the last few weeks:  There was tax preparation and the failure of the filing key code and then the last year's filing discrepancy notice to be researched. There was sorting four bookcases of books to put like books together, and redistribute some to other, and to set aside a few for re-reading. There was making of a few digital artsy things with some new tools (some I nearly forgot I acquired.) There was lots of catching up on the filing of things save to desktop (always and indication of disorder). There was lots of exploring of content (I would need to look at all the new Favorites -- a list of my wanderings for clues about the what got my attention.) There were a few extended family tasks. Finding a dead raccoon in the backyard. Preping lots of pictures of Vermont and Gramps for the yet to be video.

And there was asking people to recommend me awkwardness.  Lots of jobs you may be interested in lists and recruiter inquiries and a resume, rebuild. I watched the AARP video on this topic after working my resume to determine a few disenchanting things. Another post for my thoughts on that topic.  But mostly watched this video like so many others to absorb what works and doesn't in the communication and the strength of the content. Pretty nice job.

The most major recent life change is trying to  take antihistamines daily again after nearly 5 years sans medication.  I think I have failed at daily because once the headaches pass I realize more than a day has also passed.  There are always up and down sides to medications; but anticipating employment outside of the home I felt a need to improve my tolerance for the smells of peopled places.

(Interrupt) No longer on hold. No explanation just business. The state employee has lots of people to process. I have that voice that is not easy to hear because of medication side-effect. I call it a cold. The challenged voice causes some customer service fatigue.  Then another On Hold ending with a confirmation that I can be conunted in the metrics of the sluggish economy again.

In conclusion, I wonder again about the duplicity of joy in the lack of accounted for time and the sense of loss or maybe worthlessness when I can not make a proper accounting of such time.  Will this be forever or will I get another corporate calendar or will I fully embrace the freedom to find what it is I am here for. 

a poem, a prayer (my soul to take)

Apocalyptic poem, lone wolves

I drive. I listen. I check the rear-view.
I listen. I drive through radio-talk.

I drift.
Once dormant notions ...lone wolves
rattle among insightful words, positively spoken, dividing.

I resemble a shiver. It is not cold. 

My eyes remain on the road ahead, underlying priorities, day-to-day. 
My essence releases into hyper drive; shaking off would be scribbles, listening. 

Notions like zombies do not drop from the sky.

radio-talk invokes guillotines, apocalypses and chaos
by intent, to prepare, not
for Jesus a second coming, but that of another 
doctrine of influence to millions.

I shiver.
Dug, deep memories. Dense chill.

Christ Have Mercy
I am without practice, but influenced. 

Others pray for God to hasten the hidden.  Imam, a community led.
No more enmity, hatred. No more conflict. Positively spoken, yet dividing
as wolves are fed.

I am tempted to pray for disbelief.
Why must I pray my soul to take?
I shiver.

~~~~

I drive, listen, check the rearview, listen…drive through radio talk. Once dormant notions rattle among insightful words, positively spoken, carried out of my seat I drive.

My eyes fix upon forward motion. 

I resemble a shiver when there is no cold. 

My inner voice rattles contending with release with priorities, day-to-day.

citizen philanthropist

For me giving decisions have become more considered because there is less bandwidth for cash contributions when not employed. Giving of time and talent actually puts you more in touch with the needs, and more likely to be asked, to give dollars. I did not factor this in satisfactorily in my early retire plan which is one reason why I want an encore position (a.k.a. post retirement career) or real job again; if the stars align.

But until that eventuality, I am being a citizen philanthropist through crowd sourced fundraising. My favorite project to date with a fundraising goal of $10,000 which reached $51,854 is a true story of light.

Last year much of my contributions were local via GiveGreater.org . This initiative out of CFGNH enabled me to get matched dollars for my chosen organizations -- ones I had historically supported like MastersManna and WPAA-TV.  I also helped local artists with a performance initiative via IndieGOGO and today I signed into DonorsChoose.org and found a local teacher whose garden project connects nicely to other volunteer efforts I am involved in - betterfood4all. And they tempted me with a matching contribution. If I became a monthly supporter for as little as $10 a month there would be another $50 given. I did enroll because I believe in the idea and hope to inform local teachers so that eventually my monthly support could be even more local than the next town over.

So this week I must thank Garry Trudeau and Jane Pauley whose passions have given mine more potential today and into the future.

Required to look for work - TBD

I work every day ... but currently not for pay. It has been enjoyable getting to learn new tools and handle the randomness that the world offers.

But I have been looking for a potential match of my experience and interests in the world of work; because it is a requirement and opportunity when you collect unemployment. I signed up today for a keyboarding class. As I tap these keys without skill I wonder if that can change. In 6th grade I was certain that typing was part of a larger plot to dehumanize us. And since we still were experiencing Cold War Civil Preparedness -- I assumed it had Cold War influences. Today preparedness has a different dimension ...and I just feel it is a personal inadequacy to connect my brain to my fingers that is at play. Anyway ... the no cost opportunity presented itself and I signed up. Now I must survive basic calendar skills and remember to go and become acquanted with moodle as well.

I also reconnected with the idea of tying all this new media experience and business analysis together to be an e-learning developer. Ironically, as I thought that this was indeed the path I was setting upon I reviewed a BA position referred to me but found a lower paying but much more interesting opportunity to apply to called Instructional Technologist at the same non-profit organization. For me this is conceptually a match -- but I must still be found by them and processed. I am excited about the prospect; but oddly even more excited about the potential of position to do work similar to what I have done in healthcare.  But in all these cases others must agree that there is a match. 

I am using this life requirement as an opportunity...which I think is my nature. The Instructional technologies position, lead me to reviewing the companies employees on LinkedIN which connected me to an e-learning Guild Group.  While it does require sifting thru all the self-promotion, it is exposure to a community of developers, their tools, where open courseware is being developed etc.  It reminded me that there is a world of good free distance learning available at MIT  
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I have been getting nearly daily emails or calls(sometimes multiple inquiries per day) from my publically posted Resume. Very few are located within a distance I feel it is safe for me to drive. 4 years telecommuting has had its effects. I am generally less comfortable driving. In a few weeks I will post again and maybe then I will actually be typing, or at least learning to. TBD 2.1.12
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The Typing Tutorial software and Forms Design both arrived.  I installed the forms design software, a choice not surprising to me.  Anyway, another opportunity was discovered today which ties into the randomness of yesterday's best momments.  In addition to proudly watching the MiddleSchool Video Speeches I was very gratified to see the top 2 videos in the High School Broadcast Journalism Project (HSBJ) REALLY PSA contest. (winners here)  2.7.12

Too many MEs

When the cloud world merges you -- it can be so confusing. Originally my silos were to help process different types of tasks and associations and to stay safe (There is a backstory with guns, and deaths and threats currently locked away).  Now my multiple identities trip me up more than they help. But the web is there figuratively and literally with its need for keys  (passwords that insist on caps, letters & characters...when i prefer to use all lower case). Ugh. 


I have not kept up with the wonders of the random distractions of each day.  The discussion of conspicuous consumption (a.k.a. Prius effect), the betterthinking video that really just needed audio, the tweets of Colbert or the walks that farting dogs give notice about -- missing.

I tried to make something of this distraction -- pictures of the Amistad statue in New Haven - but I really did not transform it in any way. 

Here are the letters that my fingers are slowly building a relation ship with.
fasde  jkl;i  ddddd this finger is most challenged.  I quess it has not had enough reason to be used to have a natural flow form brain to hand. Anyway i am looking forward to the mavis Beacon typing lessons software.  Hopefully $15 well spent.

Serendipity 2012

So at the back of my mind there was a unspoken intent to do some VideoPoem work in 2012. I really do want to do HEMAN, A Man from Vermont a poem I wrote in 1999 for family  (also called What Makes America Work).  Here is how it begins:

"What makes America work?'
Grandpa slipped his soul into conversation
like a late night visit to the cookie jar - clandestine
spirit, satisfaction, hmmnn - sweet energy.
His eyes twinkled with exclamation: "It's people!"

I suspect this old Democrat who fettered party fundraising letters
with the lavishness of a nesting Oriole - took a vital life step, the day
this question "What makes America work?" infested his psyche.

At a recent gathering for the passing of his eldest daughter, I met some of his great-grand children who had their firmest recall of the man from pictures and this poem. One greatgrandaughter was intently working on geneology and scrapbooking of the family story ... she had some pictures.  I promised to connect -- but wanted to be firmly ready for the journey. I am yet to be.

As my last post suggests I am a believer in collaboration ... even in the arts, maybe, most especially.  Here the reflective nature of evolving in connection with others can be powerful. 

As I make this post I remember my 1st encounter with the book Transforming Vision: Writers on Art (the Art Institute of Chicago).  Within that collection of art and words Stuart Dybek reflects upon finding light at the Institute in the essay Killing Time. He was jobless. His experience of the Public Library was juxtaposed with the Institute -- as a place for the displaced and dispossessed drowsing over enormous tomes or reading. This was 1990. Today it echoes with enormous ripples. In a recent  reintroduction to my expanded welcoming suburban hometown library as a person whose job was terminated I had similar reflections about its inhabitants.

So on the 1st Monday of 2012 I set upon a task to find collaborators for my Community TV Station:  Potential content developers and Board Members. 

Within this effort which involves searches & hyperlink  following I stumble into another opportunity for collaboration with CT  artists as I get wowed by  a photographer that has a way with capturing light and a sound designer that I had the pleasure of being LinkedIN with whose share brought me to this enchanting composition and I think to myself herein is a video poem in search of words. Then I get a call from a decade done life that connects me with a poet whose words appear to connect both

Let's start turnin' the pages and viewing these urban cages as places to grow up sages and setiin' the stages ... for a revolution. A Light Revolution. Cementing futures in liberation and resolution of the knife to our neighbor and the knife to ourselves. Twelve is the number of daisies coming up through the sidewalk. Talk to me about your dreams and all the places in between the snow falling slow.

So I seek permission to collaborate to make a video poem. 

So it appears that in March my toils will be enchanting... but I am not wishing  my days away 'til then... as they are full of civic collaborations of which I am as eager to get underway, well.  BetterFood4all is being launched as initially outlined in this post.