Chasing the filthy lucre

I finally did it. After two-plus years, I initiated the firing sequence (two negative Covid self-tests) and launched myself back into community. I'm (sort of) proud (but mostly shocked) to announce I mingled unmasked with a group of humans in an indoor setting for a two-hour event. I can't believe I did it, and I hope I don't regret it. 

On a mild morning this week, I drove up the winding road to an art gallery-slash-gift shop in an upscale mall in the Catalina Foothills. (Now that I've moved to the Trailer, I can claim I live Catalina Foothills adjacent. Look at me go, I've been here just over a year and already I'm a snob.) I had expected to wear my mask, as I always do in an indoor setting. However, nobody else was wearing a mask when I arrived. After seeing that, my higher reasoning faculties shut down, and I caved to peer pressure. Nobody said anything. I just folded. It is embarrassing and humbling to admit how little spine I really have. 

Maybe if I hadn't been the star of the show, I would have had more gumption. As an audience member, I'm good at hiding out in the last row. I could have quite happily hid behind my N95, no problem. However, I was at the art gallery to share with the gallery membership the knowledge and experience I've accumulated as a mentor to artists who think it would be jolly good fun to turn their art into a money-churning cash cow. In other words, I was there to give a lecture on business plans. Whoa, did you feel that breeze? That was your brain checking out for a second. I know. It happens to me too. Art and business? Wha—? 

Seems like we don't really hear of those two things being discussed in the same sentence, do we? At least, not in the real world, and by real, I mean like, actual reality, not the magical world of marketing that makes billions of dollars persuading artists they can become rich and famous without dying first. Art and business hook up in the business world, but not in the art world. MFA students aren't taught how to register as an LLC and get their marketing plans ready. Budding artists are told their art is not a commodity. It's something unique and special. In fact, to call art a product is a deadly insult to some artists. To call their art anything less than fine is fighting words. Don't you dare use the word artisan. Craftsperson. One step away from hack. 

Whatever. Artists love to hear about the joy of delivering their art to the art-hungry world. As soon as I mention the words sales tax or LLC, they all but run screaming into the night. In fact, only one person in my audience of a dozen or so wannabe artist-turned-millionaires was wearing a mask, so I could see the exact moment when their brains turned up their little cerebellar toes and said nope, not for me, I'm outa here. 

As usual, each artist in my crowd was at a different stage in their career. No way was I able to address all their needs. It's dumb to try and yet I keep trying. Isn't that the very definition of insanity? Well, no big epiphany there. Still, I did my best to be informative, pleasant, and engaging, even as they one by one got right into my personal space and breathed all over me. I didn't shake any hands and nobody touched me, I don't think, probably because I am a stinky mess, having forgotten how to groom. I've lost the art of caring about how I look. Or smell, apparently. Clearly, I've been alone and sweating in the desert for too long. But I wasn't stinky enough, apparently. They still got too damn close. 

I delivered my dog-and-pony show, and when it was over, I helped schlep the chairs back into the storage room and stack them in neat vertical piles, ready for next month's members' meeting, because my mission in life is to be useful, even if it kills me. I am not a member of this gallery, in case you are wondering, nor do I plan to be, even though as a creative knucklehead, I would fit right in. The idea of immersing myself into the bubbling angst of artists struggling to retain a shred of their creative souls as they troll the world of commerce for enough filthy lucre to pay their rent is too much for this introvert. 

Every conversation I have with artists these days starts the same way: I want to make money selling my art. After a while, I want to scream. With laughter, of course. I think I've been alone too long.

The chronic malcontent plays hooky to go to school

Last night I took a night off from daughter duty to attend an in-service (teacher training) at the local community college for which I occasionally teach business courses for artists. The in-service was conveniently located at the campus at which I'd taught, so I knew how to get there and where to park. The college's Community Education program has locations all over the city. I was grateful I did not have to find my way to the west side of town in the dark.

The invitation indicated the event started with networking at 5:30 pm. The presentation was scheduled to begin at 6:00 pm. As usual, I arrived early, as did many others. People were already gathering in the lobby when I arrived at 5:20. They sat on fluffy square chairs in a small area, ignoring each other, looking at their phones. Networking in the new age.

Like any practicing introvert, I found a corner and wandered to it. An older woman with wild dark hair joined me.

“Hi, what do you teach?” she asked.

“I teach a business course for artists,” I replied, stammering a little. “How about you?”

“I teach juggling.”

Intrigued, I asked her some questions. Soon we were discussing the amazing activity of juggling—how it's mostly men who want to learn to juggle but kids like it too, how women think they won't be any good at it so they don't try, how she does no promotion, how enthusiasts hold juggling festivals and associations all over the world, how tens of thousands of members juggle socially here in the local Portland juggling community, how Reed College has had a juggling class for thirty years... I was, like, how come I've never heard of this?

“Have you considered creating a juggling class just for women?” I asked.

“I don't do any marketing, I don't know how,” she said.

“Maybe you should take my class!” I laughed, dead serious.

“Maybe you should take mine!” Bam. She got me back.

The assembled group trooped into the auditorium. I lost track of the juggler. I found a seat in the back row behind a young woman with fluffy dark hair. What is it with all these frizzy coifs, I wondered. My hair is typically five-eighths of an inch long. Tall. Whatever. I of course kept my hat on the entire evening, decorated tastefully with my adhesive name tag.

“What do you teach?” The young woman turned around to address me. I told her and asked her the same question.

“I give chocolate tasting tours,” she replied.

The director began introducing the program directors and the chocolate expert turned around in her seat to face the front. I looked her up in the course catalog we'd been given with our in-service packet. Ah, there she was, with a photo and everything, a course about chocolate. Wow, who knew.

Soon we exited and joined a line of teachers leading up the stairs. I smelled food. I got in line behind the chocolate woman, who ignored me. Eventually, her conversation partner asked me what I taught. I told him and found out he taught ceramics.

“I sell tea services at the Saturday Market,” he said. “I'm building a place for groups to rent space to have traditional tea ceremonies.”

We got in the buffet line (catered by local eatery Laughing Planet). I grabbed a white china plate and eyeballed the white rice, black beans, and unidentifiable options in the big stainless steel serving dishes. I spread a small corn tortilla on my plate and heaped it with tofu and salad stuff, a few beans, a little bit of rice, a glob of bright green guacamole. I found some small round corn chippy things but ignored the various sauces and salsa.

The in-service agenda required us to take our plates of food to breakout rooms, where we would sit with the teachers from our department and hear the news from our program director. I parted company with the ceramicist and went downstairs to locate my tribe.

Several old (older than me) white men sat eating silently at long tables in a classroom. I sat in the front row near the wall so no one could sneak up on me. A couple guys nodded as I pulled up a chair to the end of the table. I noticed one woman, an older gal with flyaway gray hair.

“This is my first in-service,” I said into awkward silence, “so pardon me if I stare.”

The man sitting nearest me smiled so I asked him what he taught.

“Electrical certification,” he replied, wiping his mouth with a black paper napkin. Everyone else kept eating in silence.

Luckily the program director, Dawn, entered with a colleague, a youngish woman with a ponytail, a neck tattoo, and big teeth. Both women carried plates of food. They sat down in the front, facing the rows of tables.

Dawn asked us to introduce ourselves and say what we taught. She pointed at me. I said my name and stuttered a bit as I tried to explain what I taught: Business course for artists. I always feel like I'm spouting a pathetic fallacy when I put business and artist in the same sentence. Or is it an oxymoron? I don't know. A pathetic oxymoron. Is that a thing? Or is it a laundry detergent? I can never remember. Anyway, we went around the room. A gray-haired man taught a class on how to start a business. Competition, I thought. A bald man taught a class on maximizing social security benefits. A guy with dark skin and an accent taught computer programming classes. The woman and the gray-haired man sitting next to her taught courses based on neuro-linguistic programming.

Two people strolled in late. One was a tiny older woman with dark hair (a twenty-six year veteran teacher), the other a younger man with creamy skin who told a story of being a student and then becoming a teacher. Both taught Spanish. The last person, in the back corner, was an ancient man who taught computer classes, one of which was Excel. I had to be impressed. I used to teach Excel, back in the day. I wonder what version Microsoft is up to now. I'm stuck in amber when it comes to computer programs. I don't even have Windows 10 yet, that's how far behind I am.

Dawn pulled out a notebook, ignoring her plate of food. First, she reminded us that we aren't allowed to promote our own businesses when we are teaching classes for the college. I thought, have I promoted my business? Then I thought, no, artists are not dissertators. No fear. I don't have anything they could buy from me, even if they wanted to. Whew.

After the breakout session, we reconvened in the auditorium for the main event, the keynote speaker. The ceramicist appeared behind me.

“Why are you wearing blue glasses?” he asked. I laughed. As I walked ahead, I was reaching in my bag to switch my up-close glasses for the distance glasses I use for driving.

“What! Now they are green!” he said. I laughed and headed to the back row. He went off in another direction.

I'm familiar with in-services from my almost ten years as an instructor at a career college. The next hour was as dreary and useless as any in-service in which the speaker fails to take time to identify the needs of the audience. The topic was student engagement. I don't know why the directors chose that topic for a Community Education in-service—students who sign up for Community Education courses want to be there. They receive no credit, no grades. They really want to learn the material. Engagement is not a problem. Like a good student, however, I gleaned what I could from the talk.

The speaker was a solidly built white woman with long hair that might have been blonde, might have been gray, hard to tell under the lights. She wore a light-colored sack-like dress printed with dots or flowers. The overall impression was white, very white. She started talking about the human brain and what keeps us from engaging. She said “right?” after almost every sentence. And she laughed. A lot. I started tracking how many times she laughed at something she said. In the first fifteen minutes, I counted sixteen times she laughed for no obvious reason. I thought, wow, she sure knows how to keep herself entertained. I stopped tracking after that and started drawing in my notebook. I looked at my neighbor two seats to my right and noticed he was drawing, too. Better than me. Clearly, an artist.

I endured to the end, including the fifteen minute award ceremony given to recognize teachers with five, ten, fifteen, and more than fifteen years of service to the college. I thought, it's unlikely I will be receiving one of those awards.

As I drove home, hunched over the wheel, peering into the dark, I thought about some things. I realized I liked meeting new people. I enjoyed hearing their stories. I liked finding out that I'm part of a larger community. I liked seeing how many creative people are sharing their knowledge and expertise. Maybe I'm not the rabid introvert I thought I was.

Today, my world narrows back to normal. Blog, laundry, lunch. I had one night off from daughter duty. In about an hour, I'll be back on the job.

Un-join me

As I slide down the dark tunnel toward winter, I'm embracing my inner curmudgeon by de-connecting from social media. I started with LinkedIn groups, ruthlessly clicking the "Leave" button with a sense of relief and hope that there would soon be less in in my box. After un-joining half my LinkedIn groups—just the ones swamped by ubiquitous discussion posts from desperate small business owners who write pleading blog posts with titles like “The ten ways using LinkedIn will make you a content marketing star!”—I moved on to my modest roster of Meetups, wearily choosing "Leave this group," and then typing in the subsequent box exactly why I was un-joining: I'm tired. My feet hurt. I can't stand people. Your inane networking sessions at crappy Chinese restaurants are killing me.

I know it's not much, but it's a start. Next I'll take the hatchet to Facebook. Every time I get an email that says, Joe posted a new photo to their timeline, I cringe at the bad grammar and vow to de-friend everyone. Well, from experience I know it's as hard to leave Facebook as it is to rid your computer of AOL. The best I can do is un-follow everyone (except Carlita and members of my immediate family, of course. My sister is in Europe. Can't miss those photos of Paris and Lyon. Can't breathe, wish I was there).

Today, as my stomach roils with the remains of almost-raw onion eaten at a networking Meetup I went to last night, I find that indigestion and general dissatisfaction with life feel much the same. I fear I've learned to associate nausea with networking. (Have you noticed that Meetups seem to find hospitable homes in the backrooms of Chinese restaurants? Wonder why that is.)

My friend Bravadita is bravely downsizing in preparation for her impending move to Gladstone, a suburb of Portland about 20 minutes south on I-205. As she described her desire to have less stuff, I found myself yearning for something similar. Except for me, rather than unloading my books at Goodwill, it's more of a jettisoning of social baggage, a conscious uncoupling, as it were, from the faceless groups of rabid networkers swarming Meetups and after-work networking parties all over the city. Hey, networkers, back off. You met me, you didn't care to genuinely know me, so stop pretending. You can keep your tar-baby emails.

Argh. I confess, I'm as much to blame: Did I try to know anyone deeply? Not so much, especially not if the place was noisy and crowded. Did I wall myself off in my introvert suit of armor and exit at the first available moment? Yes, mostly, I guess I did. Is my current dissatisfaction evidence of my chronic malcontentedness, or is it just a special case of non-digesting onions? In fairness, I must say, not all networking events are the same; I'm learning to be discerning (no more Moxie mixers for me). And not all networkers are the same, either. I have met some smart, strong, interesting, and determined women in the past year, people I respect and admire. I fear the stinky truth: I'm just ashamed to admit I'm as desperate as the next hungry shark waving a business card at a crowd of fellow sharks. Rather than admit I can't compete in that pool, I'm disconnecting by choice. I'm following the artist's way: If you build it, they can come or not, as they please.

Introversion is not a disease

Today, as one of my marketing activities, I sent an email to a marketing guru here in Portland. I will let him remain nameless. You might know him, though. He's the mastermind behind the networking events that take place every month at Trader Vics, which I have blogged about a few times in recent months.

I approached the guru through LinkedIn, intending to give him a polite nudge through a professional network (or so they say...seems like the quality of posts from my LinkedIn contacts has deteriorated of late, as people upload insipid quotes and lame mind puzzles in an effort to stay at the top of the queue. (It works, more's the pity.) Anyway, I thought my email to the marketing guru was understated and respectful.

Guru, I said, I have enjoyed your networking meetings over the past few months. Have you considered holding an event specifically for introverts? Yours respectfully, etc. etc.

A few hours later, a reply! He accepted my invitation to connect (me and my paltry 83 connections will hardly make a ripple in his 500+ massive network). And he suggested, in reply to my question, that I check out Toastmasters.

What the—!? Toastmasters?

Now, I have nothing against Toastmasters. It is a fine organization full of friendly, supportive, encouraging people. I was a member of Toastmasters when I was in college (the second of my many times around), and other than the heart-stopping moment when I forgot my speech in front of 200 people, I have fond memories and learned a lot. But Toastmasters as a cure for introversion? Really, Mr. Guru? Really?

Hah! As if introverts need a support group to help them get over a fear of speaking in public! Introverts aren't afraid of speaking in public. Introverts disdain the need for a public. A pox on your public! Hah! As if introverts are tongue-tied, stammering, red-faced idiots who faint if they are asked to try out their elevator pitch on a stranger! Hah! I'll take the stairs!

Introverts are not shy! We are simply inclined toward an internal focus. We would rather sit back and watch you extraverts make fools and lightning rods of yourselves than bully our way to centerstage to compete with you. Being alone is supremely satisfying. A good vampire romance, some Ecuadorean chocolate, and a hot bath are just icing on the cake of solitude: It's the solitude that heals and refreshes. You get my drift, Mr. Guru? I don't need you. I don't ever need you.

As an introvert, I derive satisfaction and fulfillment from developing deep connection with one person at a time. Two at the most, but preferably one. When I start a conversation with a stranger at a networking event, I want time and space to ask meaningful questions and dig deeply for genuine connection. So, what if an event was structured in such a way as to allow time and space for introverts like me to really connect with a few others, one at a time? Hmmmm. There's my idea, and if you like it, dear Reader, feel free to run with it.

I thought the event could be modeled after the speed-dating idea, but in speed dating, the configuration is a little different. Usually (and I assume this, since I've never been to a speed-dating event, or any other type of dating event, for that matter) the women don't need to interview each other; they only need to talk to the men. (Unless this is LGBTQIA speed dating. In that case, we'll need to rent an arena.) But in the boring world of hetero, arranging the prospective pairs in two long rows makes sense. The men get up when the bell rings and move down one seat, sort of like the guests did at the Mad Hatter's tea party. But at a work-related networking event, everyone needs to talk to everyone else. That suddenly complicates things in a big way.

Do you remember factorial math? I probably took it in high school and in college (all three times around), and I still I have to look it up to remember how it works. All I remember is the exclamation point! 20!/(20-2) 2! Whew! What an energetic equation! Luckily Excel can calculate it for me. If we invite 20 people to attend the networking event, and we pair them up in teams of two so they can talk while gazing intently into each other's eyes, we are looking at 190 possible combinations of partners. If everyone talks for, say, three minutes, a room full of 20 people will be there exchanging elevator pitches for 19 hours. Assuming my math is correct, or even close, I doubt if anyone would sign up for a networking event that long, no matter what the prize. And as you and I both know, there is no prize in networking.

Lest you fret, be assured introversion is not catching. (I sometimes wish it were.) When the bell rings to change partners, all the extraverts can fight for top dog out in the arena. I think I'll stay home.

Bad news: My top five strengths have given me an emotional hernia

A friend of mine who is a business coach sometimes helps me with business stuff. We talk weekly. I help her with market research ideas, she listens to me spin (verbally) in circles, which apparently is not uncommon among her paying clients. As a way to stop spinning, or at least, to find out why I am spinning, she suggested I take an assessment called Strengthsfinder, which is an instrument offered by Gallup to help people maximize their strengths.

Back in 2007, the career college I used to work for paid for all its instructors to take the $9.95 assessment to find out their top five strengths. Those were the days when the college was riding high on the seemingly endless waves of federal student loan funding. The administration even gave us all a copy of Teach with your Strengths. I think I still have it somewhere, unless I bequeathed it to the dumpsters after they closed the campus last year. That's a story I've already discussed ad nauseum, no more about that here. What I will say about that whole teach with your strengths thing, though, is that (in my opinion) it gave carte blanche to teachers who weren't feeling motivated to improve the teaching skills they happened to be weak in, for example, organizing skills or time management skills. Instead, these instructors serenely informed us that they were teaching with their strengths. And of course, students continued to complain, which eventually led to some terminations, because administrators don't really care how you teach but they do read those all-important student evaluations.

But that was then, and here I am now, self-employed and trying to figure out my value proposition. And that is why my friend suggested taking the Strengthsfinder test. Again. Because apparently one's strengths can change over time. Although Gallup doesn't think so, because they wouldn't let me take the test again under the same name I used before. Once I created a new identity and paid my $9.95, I was given the link to the instrument: 177 questions not unlike the ones you see on the Myers Briggs or any online employment test. It's a tedious task to read the two options and click one of the five bubbles, especially when it seemed to me that more than one option applied. But whatever. Those Ph.D.s must know something, right? Hey...

Be that as it may. Here they are, my top strengths, in order: Learner, Intellection, Strategic, Connectedness, and Analytical. When I went back to check my 2007 results, sure enough, similar, but not exactly the same. The strengths of Input and Individualization are now replaced by Connectedness and Analytical. Don't ask me what this means. I hope my coach friend can figure it out. All I know is, four of my five strengths are in the Strategic Thinking area, which could possibly explain why I am a dreamer and not a doer, as I've complained about before. I think this propensity to dream rather than do is a progressive disease, actually. I'm becoming more strategic by the minute, which means I try to scope out the ramifications of every action before acting. I think you can see that an excess of strategic thinking could easily lead to paralysis.

I bolster myself daily with calendars for tracking and planning. I'm making friends with Outlook's task function, which I've always despised. I took a productivity class on skillshare and learned a system for getting things done. I'm clawing my way toward efficiency. I'm even tracking my calories and grams of protein (I really don't want to have to buy new jeans). Yes, I'm getting some useful things done—networking, website revisions, little research projects for friends—but I fear I'm swimming in my own fetid stench, which is what happens when one has the other progressive illness known as introversion. I've got it bad, and I fear it will only get worse. Efficiency is great, but I think I'd prefer effectiveness, if you know what I mean. Hey! Before I start putting up aluminum foil in my windows, where's the number for Introverts Anonymous? And I might as well join Strategic Thinkers Anonymous, too, while I'm at it. You can't be in too many 12-Step programs these days. It's just a fact. Wait a moment while I add that to my task list.

Why it's good sometimes to walk toward the thing that scares you

I found out from my academic adviser that I have until the end of November to complete my doctorate. Here's me, eyes rolling back in my head, hands beseeching the universe, in the moment before I open my little pursed lips to scream.

Let me digress for one moment and complain about the spellchecker in Google blogger. The word adviser...I'm used to spelling it with an o, as in advisor. But Google is flagging it as an error. Apparently both spellings are correct, but adviser is more common. Huh. My university spells it advisor. What do they know.

Well, I hope they know that they are most likely going to have to grant me an extension come November, because four months to write a qualitative study seems close to impossible, considering I haven't even collected half my data yet. If I were feeling really perky and optimistic (which I'm not), I would make some inane comment about how great it is to be unemployed exactly when I need every minute to write this paper. Wow, talk about serendipitous timing, right? You'd think I'd be grateful that the career college laid me off when it did. Am I grateful? Well, maybe a little. I feel grateful not to be teaching keyboarding anymore. I feel grateful every morning at 8:30 a.m. when I leisurely claw my way out of bed. I feel grateful that I can stay up as late as I want. Usually.

I say usually because I did something I'm sure I will regret: I agreed to attend a Portland Connect networking event at 2nd and Market downtown with my friend and former colleague Sheryl... at 8:00 tomorrow morning! Argh. I must be nuts. To make things more exciting, I refuse to try to park my car downtown, so I am going to pick her up, drive to the closest MAX station, park, and drag her onto the train. (Sheryl is not an avid fan of public transportation.) This should be an adventure. I wouldn't be half-surprised if Sheryl cancels on me. I wouldn't be all that shocked if I overslept.

A friend of mine makes a practice of doing the thing she's afraid of. That is what I am doing. Networking at any time of day is not a thrilling prospect. Networking at 8:00 a.m. sounds like complete and utter torture. Sheryl will be my security blanket, my teddy bear. When I get anxious I can always talk to Sheryl. And if I'm really brave, I can introduce Sheryl to all the strangers we meet. I can do that for her when I can't do it for myself.

We'll see how it goes. If it goes. I wouldn't bet on it. Stay tuned.

Adopt an introvert, save the world

We all know people who tend to be quiet, maybe even a little shy. They don't exactly skulk around the periphery of our social gatherings, but they are far from center stage. These folks are happier behind the camera rather than posing in front. They don't just not seek out the limelight, they actively avoid it. They make excellent audience members. They are often the first to arrive at a party (to avoid the crush), and always the first to leave (to escape the crush). These people are introverts.

Introverts thrive in the unkempt fringes of the social garden. They wither when brought into crowded rooms. If you want to bag an introvert, you must meet her in her preferred element. You must approach cautiously, making as little noise as possible, and you must be alone. It might seem like a lot of work, but it's worth it; introverts make loyal and devoted friends, as long as you don't make them go to concerts or ballgames with you.

During the holidays, introverts do their best to follow the social norms. Because of social pressure, introverts will show up to family gatherings. They will dress up, bring presents, and gamely put on a happy face for as long as they can. They may even look like they are enjoying themselves. You may see the introvert reclining on the couch between Aunt Ida and Aunt Oda, laughing his head off. You may see her carrying on a lively conversation with Uncles Red and Redder, smiling like she's having the time of her life. Especially if she has been drinking. But you should be aware that inside every introvert is a silent people alarm. When it goes off, the introvert starts to sweat. He will leap off the couch like he was goosed. If you blink, you will miss her as she is gliding out the door.

Don't take it personally. It's not that they don't like you. One at a time, you are just fine with the introvert. It's the group of you that is overwhelming to the introvert—the noisy, boisterous, endlessly talking, space-encroaching, energy-sucking group of you.

Introverts like to believe they are special. They go to great lengths to be unique. They may dress strangely. They may speak oddly. They really are exotic creatures. Try to accept them as they are, whatever that happens to be today. Long hair, green hair, no hair... tattoos, piercings, plaid pants, whatever it is, try to avoid showing your distaste or amusement. Whatever you do, don't ridicule them in front of the crowd.

Here's the thing about introverts. They are unpredictable. You may think you know them, but you really don't. They are skilled at presenting a socially acceptable facade. If you snarkily comment on their weird garb, they may laugh with you, but you won't know that inside, underneath that facade, they may be plotting your downfall. They may be planning revenge. They may have mapped the building and blocked the exits. They are exotic creatures, but sometimes exotic creatures have sharp teeth and deadly nails.

So, when you attend your holiday socials this year, pay attention to the family members who are quietly reading a book or watching TV in another room. Watch especially for the ones who are torturing the cat or the three-year-old nephew when no one is looking. Introverts are easy to miss. Observe discreetly, though, so you don't send them running for the exit. And if they need professional help, for god's sake, make sure they get it.