Who does networking better: people or ants?

As I recover from the minor trauma of having my breasts squashed between two plastic plates by an overly enthusiastic technician, I reflect on two topics: ants and people.

First, people. Last night was the monthly meeting of the Organizational Development Network Oregon chapter. It was a lovely evening, by Portland standards: mid 60s, clear blue sky (in March! I know!), a slight breeze scented by growing things instead of perfume... It doesn't get much better than that this time of year. The meeting room in the multistory NW Portland Con-Way building wasn't quite ready when I arrived at 5:30 p.m. The earlier arrivals had commandeered the chairs in the security lobby waiting area. Other folks stood by the security desk, talking. I didn't know anyone by name, so I got my visitor pass and went back out into the sun.

A woman whose name escaped me (I know I am connected with her on LinkedIn...Don't get me started on the uselessness of that social network) was standing nearby, checking her smartphone. I greeted her. She responded politely. I said something about the weather. Her reply was terse. From that I surmised she was probably conversing with an invisible someone else via text and had no extra bandwidth to devote to a conversation with me. I was fine with that. I walked over to a bush covered with white blossoms and sniffed a flower. Heaven. The off- and on-ramps from the Fremont Bridge soared in the near distance, buzzing with rush hour traffic.

Time out while I brush an ant off my monitor.

Pretty soon another person arrived, a tall young woman in luscious cream pants and high-heeled shoes. She went in, got her visitor pass, and came back out. I greeted her. She responded politely and pulled out her electronic tablet thingy. She began poking at it intently, clearly not interested in talking with me. I leaned on the cement wall and watched as another person came outside, holding her smartphone in front of her. Now there were four of us standing in the sun outside the building, not talking. I couldn't help smiling, thinking how ridiculous, how strange, that four women who all belong to the same networking group are ignoring each other while standing no more than ten feet apart.

It occurred to me later, after we'd all gone inside, that if I were a paranoid schizophrenic, I would have assumed they were all texting one another about me. Who is that weird woman who always wears a hat? And those pathetic fingerless gloves... does she know they are just cut-off socks?

Time out while I flick an ant off my desk.

I don't care what people think about me anymore. I used to care deeply. Age has cured me of that particular malady, lifted it right out of me. Age has also transformed the mammogram from a dreaded, painful reminder of my femaleness to a slightly annoying, completely painless inconvenience in my day. I guess age has its uses. Deflated funbags being one I sometimes forget to be grateful for.

At the meeting, I sat at a table up front, where I connected quite satisfactorily with the younger-than-me woman on my left. She reported her status as “in transition.” At first I thought she meant she was dying. Then I realized she meant she's unemployed. (Although dying and unemployment could be perceived as similar conditions, with a little shift in my perspective. I fear I may find out for myself in a few months.)

Time out while I scrape an ant off the back of my neck.

The topic of the evening was brain-based coaching, also known as results-based coaching. Odd that two very different monikers name the same coaching process. I know squat about coaching, but I really enjoyed the workshop. Sadly, the trainer ran out of time and felt compelled to rush to the closing. As we were applauding, she tossed off a comment about how she learned that chasing the money instead of serving her clients got her neither money nor clients. And eureka, there was my nugget for the night.

Last night after I got home, I inadvertently located the hidden treasure of the ant hordes high up in a cupboard in my bathroom. They apparently weren't expecting me home so early. When I turned on the light, I found an ant caravan leading to a half-empty bottle of mouthwash I didn't know I had. The ants knew I had it, though. The random scouts had come back with the loot. The gold rush was on. It was a simple matter to nuke the mouthwash and dust the trail with diatomaceous earth. That should take care of the bathroom. (And by the way, don't you worry just a tiny bit about what ants would be attracted to in a bottle of mouthwash? The same thing that dentists are attracted to, I wonder?)

I had similar luck in the kitchen, where the ant generals got cocky and revealed the doorway to their underground cavern. I would have had to have been blind to miss the pack trail going into a tiny cave by my vitamin cupboard. I swooped in with the dust bomber (a paintbrush dipped in diatomaceous earth) and plugged up their door.

I thought that might be a turning point in the war, that I might finally be getting the upper hand. But earlier today, I was folding tee-shirts after laundry, and found ants roaming the stack of tee-shirts in my dresser! Wha—? There is no food in my dresser. The only food in my bedroom is carefully wrapped and stashed in my bugout bag (in preparation for the earthquake, coming soon). I checked the bag: no ants. So what the heck are they doing picnicking in my tee-shirts? I'm confounded. I admit it. I don't understand ants. Or people.

I just found a caravan of ants trundling along the bathroom door jamb. I ran to get the diatomaceous earth bucket and paintbrush. Suddenly I felt something crawling on the back of my hand. Some things. Ants! Crawling from the dust, making a break for freedom, via my hand! The resilience (and nerve) of these tiny creatures is astounding. If I had half their persistence, well, I leave it to your imagination.

Excuse me while I pull my ant helmet further down over my ears. Clearly, this siege is not ending any time soon.

Turn here

I spent a couple hours today working on my first lesson plan for the Marketing course that was supposed to begin tomorrow evening. That's right. Was supposed to begin. I got a phone call from the Dean late in the afternoon: Sorry, the class is cancelled due to lack of students. I made all the appropriate noises and so did she. After I hung up the phone, I shocked my cat by bursting into song. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles! The universe has spoken!

I'm not surprised the class was cancelled. This is the world of for-profit career education, after all. Vocational students say one thing and frequently do another. And when you push them toward a deadline, they balk.

Am I sad? Not even slightly. I took a few minutes to calculate the financial return I could have expected from the 11-week course (lest I be deluding myself that I was doing it for the money). By the time you factor in a couple hours a week of prep time, an hour of commute time, and a couple gallons of gas, what looked like a reasonable hourly rate dropped by two-thirds. I might as well be paying them.

What other reason besides earning a few dollars would I have for teaching at a dreaded for-profit career college? Other than the relatively minor joy of teaching marketing, the only solid reason I can think of is that it would give me stories to blog about. I never lack for stories to blog about. But students are so.... ripe for skewering. It would have been a rich source of material for my pen-like sword. Sword-like pen. Whatever.

I'm not unhappy with this turn of events. In fact I'm relieved. Tonight I used my sudden sense of freedom to finish stuffing and stamping my first batch of direct mail marketing letters. I know the recipients will toss them in the recycling bin, but that's okay. If I don't take action, then nothing can happen. That much I know. I'm taking each day as it comes. These days I stay pretty close to the present moment, and that keeps me fairly serene. If the universe says turn here, I turn. In this case, it seems the universe has recalculated my personal GPS.

Tomorrow, though, I wouldn't be surprised if I get another phone call from the Dean, saying the student(s) have reappeared and would I still be willing to teach the class? That's the crazy world of for-profit higher education. This institution appears better than the one that laid me off last year—regional accreditation makes everything seem shiny. But look under the hood and you see the same engine driving the operation: the profit motive. Even regional accreditation can't make a for-profit institution be something it isn't. The more I think about it, the more I suspect I just dodged a bullet.

The chronic malcontent gets on with the business of living

I'm pleased with myself tonight. If I weren't so tired, I'd be typing this dancing. Well, maybe not dancing, but shuffling. Why am I pleased? I figured out how to give a special gift to the wonderful folks who register on my website. No, it's not a box of chocolate, sorry, in case you were thinking of signing up. It's just a boring white paper about a topic I fear only I am interested in. But whatever. I'm dipping my timid toe into the raging current known as content marketing. So, kudos to me.

That's my technological victory. Not terribly impressive, I know. In a few months when I want to offer a different gift, we'll see if I'm able to remember how I did it. That's the problem with technological victories. They don't come with handbooks my brain can retain. I have to start over from scratch. Thank god for the Internet.

Any other victories to report? No progress on the ant situation: I continue to battle for space in the kitchen, and I'm not above eating them (although fear of being dinner doesn't seem to faze their industrious foraging).

I can report a little forward motion on the networking front. I went to a marketing event on Wednesday evening. Once again I braved the rain to join the unwashed masses on mass transit. The vent was at an independent theater near the famous Powell's bookstore. The event was a lecture by a marketing research guy. The topic: writing effective survey questions. I went to find out what I don't know. You know, the holes in my knowledge. As it turns out, I know a lot, which is nice, and (almost) worth the $40 it cost me to attend.

There weren't many people there, maybe 30 at the most. Not surprisingly, almost all of them were much younger than me. They're so attractive. And they talk so fast, these young marketers. So energetic. Where do they get their energy? Oh, I know, don't tell me. Red Bull. Mountain Dew. Well, I wasn't born yesterday. Obviously: I remember when Mountain Dew was a hillbilly beverage. Now Mountain Dew's former tagline is the name of my email provider. What the f—?

I managed to participate in and even instigate a few conversations, but failed the next day to convert anyone into a LinkedIn connection. I've lost steam on my quest to gain connections. I haven't even hit 100 yet; I'm bogged down in why bother? I get the idea in principle, but in practice, it seems like a futile bit of ego-stroking. Look how many connections I have! Nobody cares.

I wish life were only full of victories. But I guess I have a defeat to report. Victory... defeat... who is to say? It feels like a defeat to me. My mother thinks it is a victory. What am I talking about? This week I agreed to teach one two-hour marketing class per week for the next 11 weeks at a for-profit university in the Tigard triangle. That is the area of the city that has become a hub, a mecca, a swamp of higher education. I won't name the place I signed on with. Who cares. The gig starts Tuesday.

The good news is their rate is more than twice what I was paid at the career college that laid me off last year. The bad news is the class is only two hours a week. The good news is I'll be teaching marketing! (Instead of keyboarding, or Word, or Excel...) The bad news is that it could take me almost an hour to get there if there is traffic. The good news is my car gets pretty good gas mileage. The bad news is... there are only four students in the class. Argh. But the good news... and why my mother is pleased: it's money. It's postponing the moment when she feels compelled to swoop in and rescue me. And more good news: it's blog fodder.

So... victory or defeat? Who knows. It's like any situation: It has pluses and minuses. After a while, when your head stops spinning, you slow down and realize it really doesn't matter. In the end all we have is right now, this moment. Tomorrow is out of our control. Time to stop judging and get on with the business of living.

It must be spring! The chronic malcontent has been swarmed by ants

It's that time of the year again: the season when I subsume my own needs and desires to the whims of the insect overlords who inhabit the Love Shack. I once thought I was something special because I'm descended from cells that figured out how to escape the primordial ooze. Now I know I'm nothing but a transport device for my ant masters to move from one part of their domain to another. And if I forget it, they do not hesitate to punish me by biting the back of my neck. Bad human!

It's hard to imagine creatures so tiny could have such a profound impact on something as large and powerful as a human (I claim god-like qualities because it's true: I'm bigger than an ant and capable of raining serious destruction on their tiny heads. That makes me large and powerful.) What impresses me is how relentless they are. And sneaky. (If I were half that relentless and sneaky, well... you can imagine! I probably wouldn't live in a place overrun by ants!)

In my efforts to defend my turf, I periodically reinforce the barricade around my compost bucket with a wall of diatomaceous earth, which I understand for an ant (or any crawling insect) is quite painful, like swallowing pins while walking on broken glass. White powder runs the length of the counter and surrounds the microwave. The place looks like a debauched baker got carried away with the wheat flour. Of course, if you know me, you know that we are gluten-free here at the Love Shack. So it's more likely to be anthrax than wheat flour. (Kiddding.) In any case, once it gets wet, the diatomaceous earth is no longer effective. Then it clumps into handy little stepping stones for ants to more easily forage among the tasty detritus around my sink.

Last night I found a dozen ants congregating in my bathtub. The cabal broke up when I swooped in with a sponge. Now, I don't mind sharing my space with well behaved critters. I'm all about live and let live (as long as you stay out of my bed). I'm sorry to say, some of them ended up floating in the soap scum. I don't like to see any creature suffer, but let's be realistic. It's pretty damn hard to save every drowning ant, especially when they are hell bent on invading my bathtub. What can you do? Well, the good news: So far they have avoided my toothbrush. I take that as a sign that I've finally found a toothpaste that doesn't appeal to ants (and dentists).

While I was on the phone today with my friend V., two ants skittered across the back of my neck. I assumed they got on the mass transit system (my fleece shirt) in the kitchen, planning to get off in the living room, where they no doubt intend to watch television or surf the Web. However, V. said something that led me to believe that ants are dive-bombing onto my head from the ceiling! I can't see them, but they are sneaky, as I have already pointed out. I wouldn't be surprised if they have little cloaks of invisibility.

Desperate times call for drastic measures. (Coincidentally just in time for Easter) I'm in the process of inventing a hat shaped like a wide flat bucket. I have plenty of cardboard. I intend to fill the hat with diatomaceous earth. The stuff isn't heavy, so that won't be a problem. It's a bit dusty, though, so I might have to wear a face mask. Small inconvenience if it keeps the ants off my neck. Have I mentioned, those little f--kers bite!

While patrolling the kitchen, I captured two scouts exploring the cat food area. I don't know how they got through. They must have had inside information. I've got the whole cat food area diatomaceously dusted... under the rug, around the edges, all along the window sill, and under the elevated platform on which the cat food dishes are placed—in water filled dishes that serve as moats. (We aren't kidding around here at the Love Shack.) And still the ants have infiltrated my defenses. They are either kamikaze sky-divers, or they are spirit ants from a parallel universe. Either way, I'm fighting a losing battle. If I don't post again within the week, send in the fumigators and save my cat.

Rethinking fear

Sometime back I think I said my new mantra was something like do what scares me. Not just do what interests me, but do what scares me. At the time I think I was referring to the challenge of committing 100% to my fledgling business start-up. That makes sense. Being self-employed is a daunting prospect. I admit I'm terrified. But self-employment is a worthwhile endeavor—for many reasons, which I'll talk about some other time if I remember—in spite of the fear it may generate.

Today I'm thinking some more about fear. Up until recently I assumed fear was my enemy. My assumption was based on the reactions of people around me when I expressed fear. The typical advice I heard also happens to be the title of a well worn book probably everyone has heard about but not felt like reading: Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway. Whatever it is, is up to each person, I suppose. I don't remember reading the book, but I probably did, back in the days when I was searching for my soul in the self-help section. Anyway, when I expressed fear, people seemed to hear it as a call to arms, a rallying cry. Fear! Must obliterate fear!

I had occasion this weekend to express a certain fear to a small group of folks who know me pretty well. The group was trying to decide if it wanted to host an annual conference in our city in August of 2015. My job was to facilitate their decision making process. Notwithstanding the fact that August of 2015 is more than a year away, I dolefully expressed my fears about how difficult the undertaking, how overwhelming the task, how likely it would be that people who step up now with exuberant enthusiasm in March of 2014 will collapse by the wayside by July 2015, when there are two weeks till Go Live and the volunteers have melted into the woods. I've been around that block before. I know a hole in the sidewalk when I see it.

The outcome was unexpected. I fear that expressing my fear actually whipped the members of this small group into a righteous fervor. After I had my say, it came time to vote on the decision. I looked them in the eyes, one after another, and polled them, one by one. To a person, they all forthrightly proclaimed their willingness to submit the bid with a firm and resounding “Yes!” I was dumbfounded. The group had spoken. I think expressing my misgivings about the endeavor, rather than dissuading them, actually spurred them in the opposite direction!

After I stopped bleeding (metaphorically speaking), I started thinking, is fear always something to be identified, walked toward, walked through? Are there no instances where fear actually protects us from the temptation of leaping foolishly toward something that could kill us?

I remember when I used to drive a school bus. I was terrified every day, and with good reason. I ferried peoples' children, the most precious of cargo. Every day was a chance to get hit by the MAX train, or to run over a child who had dropped a backpack in the gutter, or to smash in a kid's skull with the wheel chair lift. (These are all things that almost happened.) I don't know if my fear protected me then, during that tense academic year. But I know the thought of reliving that fear protects me now. No matter how badly I need a job, I will never again drive a school bus. My fear will prevent me. And I am grateful for that fear.

So maybe my original blithe remark about challenging myself by doing what scares me was a bit naive, maybe not thoroughly considered. Maybe fear isn't always the enemy. Maybe sometimes fear can be a friend. Maybe it's like any other situation—or person—we meet in life: a bit of both.

Driving in circles

Yesterday I had a job interview in Tigard, which is a... I guess you would call it a suburb of Portland, although you can't tell where one city ends and the other begins. Tigard isn't as far as Wilsonville, which is where the career college I used to work for is located, but I can't get to Tigard by sneaking down the scenic route, I-205 (trees, dead deer, open fields). I had to muscle my way through the meat of the city. First I went west on I-84 (formerly known as Sullivan's Gulch, a tree-filled canyon that was carved up for Oregon's first freeway, AKA The Banfield). I-84 splits when you get to the Willamette River. You can go north. You can go south. I went south and crossed the river on the Marquam Bridge, a tall imposing double-decker that will plunge into the drink when the earthquake decimates the Rose City.

Time out while I bask in the glow of one of the greatest driving songs of all time: The soundtrack to Route-66 is playing through my speakers. Okay, I'm back. I wish that song were longer. So, where was I? Oh yeah, driving across the bridge, headed for Tigard. It's really not that far, if there's no traffic. I knew where I was going, more or less, and eventually I arrived at a multi-story office building housing a number of businesses, including some well-known brand names I wouldn't mind working for.

My destination was in the basement of that building, where a proprietary college from the Midwest has planted its flag, staking out territory for its first foray into the west coast market. At first glance, it appears to be just like the career college I left last year, perhaps with slightly deeper pockets and a longer reach. Why the Portland market, I wondered? Who cares. I looked at their reviews online, both students and employees, and they weren't any different from any other career college's reviews, that is to say, unimpressive.

Still, I was there to interview to teach one marketing class, their first ever on-ground class in that location, so I put my best malcontented foot forward and stumbled through the rain from the parking lot to the basement door. The place was empty. No students yet, just two administrators and some hardworking salespeople, I mean, admissions counselors, working the phones in little cubicles in a long narrow room with no windows. The administrator took me on a tour—see the lovely break room, the medical lab?—but we didn't go in the boiler room.

I had prepared a short first-day icebreaker lesson as a demonstration of my teaching skills, which I presented to the two administrators in a computer lab with one window high up on the wall. Through the window I could barely make out the grills and undercarriages of parked cars and pickups. As I talked, I had the eerie feeling I'd been there before. The computers looked a little different, but the beige walls and bland gray carpet looked the same. With fewer fingerprints and coffee stains, maybe, but give them time. I should have felt enthusiastic: Yay, I (might) get to teach marketing. But all I felt was a neutral resignation. Yay, a job, maybe. $500 for a couple months of wrestling with traffic and unmotivated students.

Haven't I been down this tired path? Why am I chasing one lousy marketing class at yet another despised for-profit college? I'm a dream come true for this outfit. I know their market as well as anyone they'll ever hire to teach there, considering proprietary vocational education was the topic of my doctoral research. They don't deserve me. They can't afford me. And if they offer me the class, I'll probably say yes. Because some money is better than no money.

Invisible old chronically malcontented white woman seeks way to get noticed

Two things have become clear to me tonight after attending yet another networking event. First, if I want a successful networking experience, I must produce the event myself. And second, I am invisible. Yep. You heard it right. Invisible.

After a pointless bout of self-flagellation related to my perceived failure to attend an early morning networking event last week, I decided to only network after noon. Today's event began with a workshop at 4:30 p.m., a very civilized hour especially if one is headed downtown against traffic. Driving was not a problem, but parking was. I cruised the streets in northwest Portland for about 15 minutes, loathe to pay a dime to a city meter. Finally I found a 2-hour meter-free spot, only six blocks away from my destination. I parked and hustled along the flooded sidewalks in the pouring rain. I knew I was almost late. Too much time spent trolling for parking! Darn. I spotted the restaurant and threw myself through the door ahead of a stylish young couple who clearly had not been there before, and thus had no idea that seating was limited. Breathing heavily and covered in rain spots, I found a chair at the last open table, in the very back of the Kontiki Room and sank onto the seat. (Yes, the Kontiki Room: It was the monthly meeting of PDXMindshare at Trader Vics.)

The other occupant of the table was a petite young woman with long blonde hair and flawless skin. I introduced myself, still breathing heavily, and found out she was a manager at Pottery Barn. We talked about how marketing research could help Pottery Barn find out if customers are satisfied. After I explained to her what marketing research was. I know. Well, you gotta start somewhere.

The couple I had barged in front of only minutes before sat down to my right. I welcomed them. (I detected no hint of resentment.) The young lady had a wide infectious smile. She said she was looking for work. The young man was thin, somewhat swarthy, and very stylishly dressed (pointy shoes). I felt like a wrecking ball, with my scarf, hat, mittens, giant messenger bag. I didn't care. I got out my notebook, ready to take notes, as the place filled up with people. This time I was on the inside of the fishbowl, not one of the hapless losers milling around outside in the lobby. Yes!

The workshop began. The topic was Building Confidence for your Job Search, led by an older gentleman (older than me, I think, although one never knows for sure). He was nattily dressed in an earth-toned striped shirt, khaki jacket, and beige silk tie. His brown pants were belted unashamedly across the middle of his girth. He looked like a well-dressed old man, except for his crowning glory: a ponytail of frizzy gray hair. How can you not love an old guy with a ponytail? Somehow ponytails make men look young, no matter how high-waisted they belt their pants, am I right?

I won't bore you with all the details of his talk. The audience seemed rapt, but there was nothing new there for me. (I'm not really sure why I went, honestly, except that it's possible if I keep showing up—I mean that metaphorically, too—something will happen. For sure, nothing will happen if I stay alone at home.) I drew pictures in my journal while the speaker showed a few uninspired PowerPoint slides and gave a shout-out for Toastmasters, which inspired me to consider becoming willing to think about looking up a local chapter. (Don't want to rush into anything, especially not when it comes to public speaking.)

While the presentation was in progress, a young waitress in black made the rounds, taking drink orders. She approached our table and spread out little drink napkins for everyone except me. The blonde ordered something. They talked a bit. Then the waitress skipped past me as if I weren't there, and took an order for two beers from the young couple to my right. I was there. I'm sure I was there. But the waitress didn't even look at me. Was I invisible?

I would have said something if the circumstances had made conversation easier. I didn't want to order anything, that's not the issue. I'm on a budget, after all. But to be blatantly passed over, as if I were invisible... such an odd feeling, to not exist.

It's happened before, usually at Best Buy kind of places. Salespeople tend to ignore me. I think it's partly how I dress. I don't look like I have money. And I usually look slightly odd, I guess you could say off, in some way. But I'm pretty sure it also has to do with age. It's my belief that young people don't pay attention to old people (unless the old people happen to be their grandparents, and only then to get birthday presents.)

Here's how I see it. At a table of four, three of the guests were stylish and young. The fourth guest (me) was clearly no longer young. Stylish, maybe, in a weird geeky hyperthyroidish way, except for the polyester knit slacks (which she couldn't see!). Three in plain view, one invisible.

I'm sure there are things I can do to be more visible. I can change my appearance in some way. Grow my own version of a ponytail, maybe. Add a green streak, perhaps. How about a lip ring, something really flashy. And then throw on whatever clothes happen to be fashionable at Forever 21 (I have no idea what that might be, I've never been in that store. I think my wheels lock up when I get near the entrance, like an old KMart shopping cart.) But you get my drift. I could change my appearance in some way. Or I could start singing random songs or reciting Beat poetry when I find myself in crowds.

I could also change my setting. Instead of hanging out with young people, I could make sure I only hang out with old people. I mean, older than me. I mean, really old, like 80. I could join the Elks. Or I could just give up and join AARP. Then I'd be the youngest one in the group and they could all cackle and talk about how much the world has changed. Why, I remember when... Or hell, as long as we are brainstorming, let's get creative. Forget the age thing. Let's think big. Let's think color! How about if I seek out events for African Americans or Hispanics? I wouldn't be invisible then, would I! Let's hear it for the sore thumbs, the square pegs, the misfits. Ha! Take that, you young uninteresting conformist whippersnapper waitress, you.

Contemplating an uncertain future... but aren't we all?

Last Friday I failed to get up at 7:00 a.m. to drive downtown in the rain for a networking event. My failure precipitated a plunge into a moral crisis. Oh woe is me, I failed to show up. Well, that's not entirely true, is it? I showed up for eight hours of sleep, something I can be reliably counted on to do, ever since I joined the ranks of the self-employed.

After a day of self-flagellation, during which I had to take an extra nap just to escape the voices in my head, I realized that depriving myself of sleep to attend a networking event is not a demonstration of character. Neither is choosing to get a full eight hours of sleep a moral failing. Am I ready yet to get over myself? I think so. By Saturday I was on the mend, emotionally speaking, and by Sunday I was over it. Finally I accept my reality: I'm not made for mornings. It's that simple. I have no problem showing up for the most grueling of networking events, as long as they are held in the evening. I won't budge out of the house before noon if I can help it.

Now my perfect schedule is bed at 1:00 a.m., up at 9:00 a.m. Such a civilized routine. Unfortunately, my best working hours seem to be when people want to call and chat. They are done with their day while I'm just hitting my stride. Sometimes I have to be firm.

My mother is the queen of night owls. She used to stay up till 2:00 a.m., sitting quietly in the family room, smoking cigarettes and reading library books under the dim glow of a floor lamp. It always felt kind of creepy to me, but then I was doing much the same thing (minus the cigarettes), huddled under my bed covers, reading Nancy Drew in the silent night. No wonder I don't remember my childhood: I was walking dead sleep-deprived. Books were more real to me than reality.

Speaking of the maternal parental unit, last night she called for no apparent reason. We'd talked the day before, so her call was unexpected. (We don't talk every day.) I let her babble on, patiently waiting to find out why she was calling. I knew she would get to it eventually. She never just calls to idly chat. There's always a reason. It's either because she wants to tell me how I should live my life, or she wants me to help her with something so she can live hers. So what would it be this time? It wasn't my old laptop, that was working fine (except it doesn't have mahjong). It wasn't the condo board; that bunch is hopelessly misguided and even my mother's wise counsel can't save them (according to Mom). This time it was something unexpected.

“I've been thinking about what will come next,” she said matter-of-factly.

Bemused, I waited for her to explain.

“Mary and Paul Norberg live at Willamette View, you know,” she said.

“Right,”

“I can't afford Willamette View.”

“Okay...”

“Marge Iverson lives at Cherrywood,” she said. “They have a workout room and a pool.”

Okay, now I was starting to get it. She was thinking about where she will go when the condo is too much for her to handle. My stomach started clenching, but I kept my voice calm.

“That sounds nice,” I said.

“And they have a garden.”

“Great.”

“I want to think about this before it's too late and I run out of time,” she said.

“Okay, Mom. That makes sense. Let's see if we can take a tour, how about that?”

“That might be a good idea.”

After she hung up I looked at the Cherrywood Village website. The photos looked lovely, like a posh hotel. The prices were as expected: way too expensive for my siblings and me to handle. I calculated how long we could keep her there if we sold her condo for a reasonable price. Not quite five years. Huh. She's only 84. What if she lives longer than five years? Hell, her aunt lived to be 100.

When I contemplate the future, I have feelings I can't identify. Too much uncertainty makes me want to go back to bed.

The chronic malcontent didn't cause it, can't control it, can't cure it: the weather, that is

I reluctantly left my cave on Monday to take my friend V. to a doctor's appointment, not sure if I would ever see the Love Shack again. Thirty feet of 6-inch packed snow covered by a quarter-inch of ice lay between my car's front tires and the snow-rutted and gravel-strewn city street. If I could just get from my parking spot to the street, I figured the rest of the way would be mostly clear sailing. Driving, I mean. Sailing makes it seem like my Ford Focus can float. It's still a car, after all. What we really needed was a personal helicopter. I'm sure we'll all have them eventually, comfy contraptions that allow us to drone to our appointments, but that is another blog post.

Well, the joke is on me. The funny thing about a Ford Focus that is not equipped with snow tires or traction devices is that once you drive onto packed snow or ice, it really does feel like you are floating. It's all about maintaining forward momentum, while simultaneously keeping a lot of space between you and all nearby objects, including the vehicles in front and to the sides of you. At any moment forward movement may become sideways movement, so it's good to buffer yourself with some extra space. And the other thing is to avoid entering situations in which you make become trapped. Like parking lots filled with slush, for example. Or hills that go up or down. Which I guess is the definition of a hill.

The hill to V.'s house looked to be about knee-deep in snow and ice. Clearly a few intrepid drivers had attempted the incline. Some of them probably made it up the grade. I knew my low-to-the-ground car would not make it six feet before sliding back into traffic. I wasn't about to attempt the hill. But neither did I want to become another casualty abandoned in a snow drift along the side of the highway.

There was no place to park, but with flashers valiantly blinking I pulled over at the bottom of V.'s street and texted her: I'm at the bottom of your street. After what looked to be a harrowing journey down the hill, she was able to open the passenger door into a snow drift and squeeze herself into my car. Phase one, check! V. is safely in the car. We were on our way.

My friend V. is going to read this post and wish I'd said something about the actual time we spent at the doctor's office. Okay. Here's a synopsis. We arrived at 2:00 p.m., an hour early. We found a dry spot in the nicely plowed parking lot. The office was small, cluttered, a little funky, as alternative medicine places tend to be. Nobody wore lab coats or scrubs. I read magazines on a comfortable couch in the waiting area while V. filled out her paperwork. At about 3:00 p.m., the doctor called her name. I followed them into a carpeted treatment room occupied by a massage table and two nice leather chairs. V. and the doctor got those. I sat on a hard slatted wooden folding chair. We were there until almost 5:00 p.m.

I listened to V. tell her story of chronic illness to the stoic female doctor, wondering why my armpits were so hot and my feet so cold. Though I'd heard some of the story before, it was still heart-wrenching to imagine what my friend has gone through in her quest to find health. What I saw was a desperate woman verbally throwing herself once more on the mercy of a total stranger, hoping that she had finally found someone with a solution.

I wonder what is wrong with a society where doctors have a financial incentive to prescribe more medical tests just because an insurance company will pay for them. I also wonder how it can possibly benefit anyone but the healthcare industry when someone who is too sick to earn is forced to go begging from family and friends in order to raise funds for treatment.

But what do I know. My role was not to question the system. I was the witness, the chauffeur, the friend. My personal goal was to get her back to the bottom of her hill in one piece. Which I achieved, I'm happy to say. After I dropped her off, I cranked up the radio and began the trek home in twilight. Who knew that trying to see the lane markers under the rutted gravel-pocked snow could be so tiring. There was only one moment where things might have gone sideways. I was ready to make a left turn, just before the light turned yellow. At that moment a slow-moving pedestrian took the opportunity to begin sauntering across the street. I managed to stop (with some fanfare, AKA, I skidded on a patch of ice) before I actually entered the intersection. The ped made it safely across the street. While I waited through the light, I wondered if other pedestrians could read my lips. I hope not. They would have seen me liberally berate the slow ped. Which was my way of thanking the universe for letting my car stop in time to avoid a catastrophe. And better slow ped than dead ped, I guess. Crossing a street in Portland can be deadly.

Tuesday I ventured out to the store to forage for food. The store shelves were a little bare, but the place was packed with giddy shoppers, thrilled to be released from their burrows in the balmy 40 degree rain. I stocked up on organic broccoli, but they were out of zucchini. Wednesday night a warm wet front moved in and by morning the snow was gone. I'd be happy never to see snow again.

The chronic malcontent whines about "snowpocalypse"

I've had it with snow. After three windy blizzards in three days, I am ready to go back to bed to wait for spring. I'm fed up with seeing families cavort past my snow-covered steps, carrying their sleds and boogie boards up to the park. Wipe those smiles off your faces! Stop laughing! Don't you know some of us prefer to suffer?

This morning I swept my front porch and steps, cutting a narrow trail to a plastic-wrapped newspaper someone dumped on my front walk, a paper I never ordered and don't want. A few minutes after I ducked back into my warm cave, it started snowing again. Within minutes my steps were an inch deep in white powder, and it hasn't let up since. My friends in Minnesota are probably playing the tiny whiny violin right now, but they don't understand that Portland is not equipped for more than three inches of snow. The city is shut down, essentially. The MAX and streetcars are running just to keep the lines clear, but many buses are on snow routes.

Up here on the shoulder of Mt. Tabor, I've heard some snow plows go by. I rush to the window to see flashing tail lights disappear around the corner. Sometimes they leave a trail of gravel in their wake. But buses are as rare as blue whales. It seems we have been abandoned, here on the busiest bus route of the city. The last bus I saw gingerly turning the corner onto Belmont was early on Thursday  morning. Now it's Saturday. Apparently we have been forgotten by mass transit. If I want off this hill, I'm going to have to hike down.

Luckily I have food. As long as the power stays on, I'm good. And I have snow boots (purchased after the snowstorm of 2008, learned my lesson), if I really have to get out of here. Meanwhile, there's nothing to do but focus on the things I am trying to avoid. The things that scare me. Like... marketing.

I remember one memorable winter in the 1960s when it snowed for days. We kids were in heaven, digging snow caves in 6-foot drifts. It was so cold in our drafty old farmhouse that my family camped out in the living room in front of the fireplace. As a pre-teen, I loved it. Later, I can say that the prospect of enduring more winters like that one was why I headed south as soon as I was old enough to fly the nest.

It may be a couple more days until the mess outside turns into slush and I can get my car out. I look forward to the moment. By then I will be out of eggs and fresh produce. I fear my cat might start to look strangely appetizing.

Dusting off my parental translation machine

As I putter from task to task, hoping at least one of my marketing strategies will bring a client to my email inbox, I hear the almost constant voice of my mother in my head. Not in a good way.

I used to hear the voice of both my parents. The parents used to tag team, good cop (literally, my father was in law enforcement) and bad cop. My father would keep me tied to him with handouts of money, while my mother would do her best to shove me out of the nest with admonitions along the lines of, “Get a job!” Since 2004 the paternal parental unit is enjoying the great Superbowl game in the sky, so all I have left is my mother to carry on the tradition of reminding me how epic is my failure at life.

I see my mother once every couple weeks and talk to her frequently on the phone. Not a whole lot has changed over the years. The last time I visited, while I stood by my car, one foot in, wondering if I would escape intact, she asked, “How's it going?”

I knew what she was asking. She wanted to know if I was earning any money yet. My mind began to scurry like a rat in a maze, looking for the response that would produce the least amount of psychic trauma. For me and for her.

“I'm working on it,” I said tersely.

“Anything happening?” This was not a casual question. It may sound casual to you, but I assure you, it was loaded with layers. You know what I mean. It's the confluence of tone and words that launch you automatically into flight or fight. Should I leap into my car and drive away? Or should I punch her lights out? That makes me laugh. She looks like you could breathe hard and knock her down, but in her younger years she was known as Mighty Mouse, so I don't assume anything. I think I could take her, but...

With one foot in my car, I looked at her and thought to myself, This is where my old parental translation machine would really come in handy.

What is a parental translation machine, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. It won't come as a surprise, once I tell you what it is. I'm sure you have one of your own. The parental translation machine is the mental meat grinder we use to translate what our parents say into what they really mean. Really mean.

Here's a classic example from my late teenhood. My father used to criticize my appearance. I resented that, understandably, and I felt especially hurt because I was enamored with the world of fashion. I used my appearance to express my personality. Which means most of the time I looked like a nut. A fashionable nut. I sewed my own clothes: hot pants, bell bottoms, peplummed jackets with ties in the back that would inevitably fall into the toilet... I thought I was pretty darn cool. My father was not impressed.

“Why don't you wear some nice Ship n Shore slack outfits?” he said. From his point of view it made perfect sense: mix and match separates, perfect for home or office or in my case, college. What's not to love?

Because I had not yet developed my parental translation device, I interpreted his comment as, “You look like an idiot! No one is going to take you seriously when you dress like a fool. Plus you are making me look like a fool! How do you think I feel, standing next to my daughter, who is wearing red corduroy hot pants?”

Of course, because I interpreted his comment as a criticism, my response was to fly off the handle, say something mean, and sulk in my bedroom among my unfinished sewing projects.

But if I had had the parental translation device, I would have realized something very important. I would have realized what my father was really trying to tell me. He was trying to say, “Daughter, I love you. And because I love you, I want you to be safe and secure in this world. I want to protect you from public shame and ridicule. I want to stand next to you and feel proud of what a talented and creative young woman you have become. I say these things because I love you and I want the best for you.”

If I had only had that device sooner.

So now that I am older, wiser, and I have the parental translation device, I know that when my mother asks a loaded question about my capacity to earn, she is really expressing her love and concern for me. She is saying she wants me to be safe. She wants to die knowing that I will be okay, that I won't be struggling to survive.

How did I respond? I usually get mad and stuff it down, and get away from her as fast as I can. This time I said, “Mom, I appreciate that you are worried about me. I am grateful for your love and care. Would you be willing to keep your fear to yourself, if you can, as I am carrying enough fear for the both of us. I can tell you I am doing all that I can, that this process takes time, and I have plenty of money in the bank. I will not starve.”

“I just don't want to see you use up all your savings,” she whined. “You know, when your brother got laid off from his job, when he went back to school, he didn't call us!” Duh, Mom. I'm not surprised, considering what happens when we interact with you. I put her new comment into my parental translation machine, and the message that came out was, “You are so independent. I know you will be okay. But I need to be needed sometimes, remember. I love you for your amazing strength and perseverance.”

Oh, man. I just started bawling. To imagine my mother saying those words was more than I could bear. It won't happen in my lifetime, but I know that is what she would say if she could.

Today I received an official email from my university, stating that my graduation had been processed and I will be receiving my Ph.D. diploma in a few weeks. My transcripts are now updated. I'm officially an alum. It could be I'm weeping over that a little bit, too.

Marketing people talk really fast

Yesterday I got up before the sun and drove out I-84 to a marketing conference at Edgefield, a former county poorhouse, now a retro-chic hotel operated by a Northwest outfit called McMenamins. I was too tired to appreciate fully the hand-painted murals on the interior walls and doors of the venerable old building as I asked a worker, “Where is the ballroom?” I was directed to the second floor window-lined auditorium, which was configured with narrow tables, all facing forward, classroom style. Ah... familiar.

A long table was laid out along the side of the room, loaded with bagels and various breakfast spreads. I ignored it and stumbled to a chair near the back that wasn't right next to another person and parked my bag. I sank onto a barely padded seat, taking note of the massive mural on the wall of the ballroom... horses, was it? Locomotives?

“They've got us packed in like sardines,” I observed to the guy two chairs to my left. He was an older guy with a smattering of sandy hair laid on his bald head like a doily. He grimaced.

At that moment a 30-something long-haired fellow strode over to the table. “Anyone sitting here? Hi, I'm Sundown.” We shook hands. Sundown introduced himself to the guy on the end. They shook hands. The guy on the end leaned over toward me, holding out his hand. I automatically reached out my hand.

“Paul,” he said, and we shook, hard. I tried not to let my eyes pop out of my head. Ow. I got up to get some coffee. The others headed for the bagel table.

We snuggled back in. Another guy inserted himself in the chair to my right. He stayed for about 30 seconds, and then he was moving on. “I need more room,” he laughed, shaking hands all around. He took the chair with him. Awesome. I spread out, shifting my chair inch by inch to fill up his empty space. Whew. I stopped feeling like a sardine and started listening to the opening remarks.

Marketing people talk really fast. In my bleary-eyed state, keeping up was a challenge. I lagged abut 8.5 seconds behind each speaker, the entire day. Part of my problem was that I was torn between taking notes or watching the PowerPoint slides. Doing both requires bi-focals, which I currently choose not to use. So, reading glasses or distance glasses? I opted for distance so I could read the slides, but then the scribbles in my notebook were a hazy blur. Getting old is hell.

My shining moment came when the moderator asked the audience for some ideas of businesses for which we might have a hard time identifying an emotional component. Someone said “children's lunch subsidies.” I called out, “marketing research.” Members of the audience volunteered three more ideas, which were so bland I can't remember them now. Then we five volunteers were asked to leave our chairs and stand in different areas of the ballroom.

Resigned, I got up from my chair and walked toward the back of the room to take up a position by the untended bar. The other volunteers went to their respective corners.

“Go help these people figure out the emotional component of their dry, unemotional businesses,” shouted the moderator gaily. The audience erupted slowly out of their seats. I waited, half hoping no one would would be interested. One guy came hesitantly over to me.

“Marketing research?” he asked.

“Hi, I'm Carol. What do you do?”

“I'm John. I'm in real estate.”

“How nice.” I waited. When it looked like nothing further was forthcoming, I prodded him by saying, “What emotion do you think might be lurking in marketing research?”

Before he had a chance to say more than a few words, an older white-haired woman came trotting up.

“Fear!” she said confidently. Wow. Was I so obvious? I looked at her, frozen.

“Fear of the consequences of making the wrong decision,” she clarified. She stuffed a piece of bagel in her mouth.

Ah, she didn't mean me and my fear. She meant the fear the prospective client might be feeling, which would prompt them to hire me. To assuage or avoid their fear. Okay, I get it.

Another woman joined us, youngish, dark-haired. “I'm from So-and-So ColorPlace!” she said and proceeded to tell us about how her company has to change its name because a rapper has recently used the name in a nasty song. Wow. Now, that's something to be afraid of, that your company name will be inadvertently destroyed by a rapper. I couldn't compete, so I let her ramble on. Soon it was time to return to our seats, and I fell back into obscurity.

That was pretty much the high heart rate point of the day, except maybe for the moment when the last speaker stopped talking and the beer began flowing. I politely declined the beer ticket the assistant waved at me, still appalled that I had managed to imbibe three of the five deadly food groups at lunch: wheat, dairy, and sugar. (If you add caffeine in there, another whoops.) Beer would have put paid to my self-esteem crisis. At that point I was sure what would serve me best was bath and bed, so I gathered up my gear and headed for home.

Later, the phone rang during my oblivion, but I merely noted that it was not my mother and buried my head back in the pillow. Exit, stage right. I'm not sure why the day was so grueling. There were only 65 people there, not a massive crowd. Everyone was well behaved. Hardly anyone talked to me, so I didn't have to fend off energy vampires. My table mates were pleasant. Other than the fact that I was sleep deprived and I ate a crappy lunch, I have no excuse for feeling obliterated by the day.

Today, the day after, I've had some time to think about it. I think I've figured it out. It's marketing, that is what it is. I've got the marketing disease. It's the Don't sell, persuade! syndrome, in which we desperately seek the magical combination of words and images that will inspire/motivate/persuade a potential client to respond to our call to action: Pick up the phone! Click on this link! Give me your email! Please, please, pretty please! What can I give you, what would it take, to make you like me, to make you want me, to make you hire me? Tell me, tell me, tell me...

How to choose a carpet color (when you have a cat)

Today I went in for my quarterly tune-up with Dr. Tony, the eccentric but lovable naturopath. Every visit is a new adventure. Today the presenting issue was—surprise!—hormones.

“How old are you?” he asked me hesitantly. Actually, he didn't say it like that. He said, “How many years young are you?” Then he smirked a little bit. “Are you still menstruating?”

Even on a good day, even with a good friend, I dislike any mention of women's bodily functions, but in this case, seeing as how I am fifty-seven, I can honestly say, Dude, I haven't menstruated in so many years, I don't even remember what it was like. I didn't say that out loud, though, because it's not entirely true. I do remember what it was like, but I'd prefer to forget.

“Something wacky with my hormones?” I asked, not all that interested.

“Something related to your uterus,” he replied, eliciting a grimace from me. I'll admit to having a stomach, but please, not a uterus. Quelle horror.

“And your thyroid,” he added, rubbing his hands together, a trademark sign I've come to realize means a couple things: Oh, boy, time for some fun! and Oh, boy, now I can shave another slice off my student loans!

He got out his little silver gun and laid that nearby. In case I was thinking of misbehaving. Then he went out into the office area and came back with a zip case, which held all the little glass vials that on my last visit were stashed on the floor in a plastic bag. The Total Body Modification techniques were a new part of Dr. Tony's repertoire three months ago. Today the word of the day was efficiency.

He took one of the vials and waved it around my head and down my spine. Oh, brother. Then he did some baby karate chops on my neck and shot several of my vertebrae with the silver gun, and lo, I was cured. Suddenly I felt all tingly and energized. So weird.

He gave me a homeopathic in a cute little blue bottle, and told me to take Vitamin D and Cortrex every day, and come back in three months. I'm on maintenance mode!

So, anyway, here's the rest, and the reason for the title of this post.

I came home and because I felt so full of energy, I decided to vacuum in preparation for the visit of a friend. Yes, tomorrow someone is coming over to the Love Shack. I can't do much about the old cat barf stains, but I can at least suck up the kitty litter, fur balls, and dust bunnies with my fabulous but rarely used vacuum cleaner. Within 30 seconds of switching on the machine, I began to sneeze. Hard. Repeatedly. I expected it, however, and I was armed with fresh boxes of tissue placed strategically along my path. But I always forget how long the swollen sinuses last, how incessant the post nasal drip, how dreary the headache.

Which brings me to my advice about choosing your carpet color, if you happen to have a cat. As I see it, you have several options. You can go with a dull pearl gray, which will camouflage the speckles of kitty litter that your cat tracks all over the house, no matter how many little rugs you put down in front of his box. Pearl gray is a modern neutral, guaranteed to go with any wall covering. I myself have covered my walls with shelves full of books and binders, but you might have expanses of blank wall, which can be painted virtually any color with confidence, if your carpet color choice is gray.

If gray seems too cold, you can try a warm beige tweedy tone. Walk over and look at the dry food in your cat's dish. About that color, is what I'm thinking. My cat gets a multicolored dry kibble, so me, I would choose a sort of muted confetti palette. What you want is something that can hide the stains left by the piles of cat food that your cat horks up in the middle of the night. Warm beige tones are always in style, and I've heard they are the neutral of choice if you are planning on putting your home on the market.

Your last carpet color choice would, of course, be the color of your cat's fur. I only have one cat, which should make it simpler for me. But he happens to be multicolored, sort of dark on top and lighter underneath, which means I find clumps of various hued hair all over the house. I would have to choose something like a tightly woven oriental design, where if you squinted your eyes, the piles of hair could look kind of like paisleys. You know, part of the design. I don't know what you should do if you have more than one cat, though. Maybe scatter rugs?

My cat heard me typing. He hates that. Now he's lying between my hands, purring. Actually, you could say he's dictating. What color of carpet should we get, little dude? Brrrrrowwnnnn! Well, if money were no object, meaning if I had lots of the stuff, then I would re-tile the kitchen floor with a speckley gray-on-gray linoleum, so I'd never have to sweep again. Then I would carpet the main room in something tweedy with a very low pile so barf couldn't get down into the warp and weft to rot. Finally, I would carpet the bedroom in some wild paisley print. (It wouldn't keep me awake: I can't see much without my glasses.)

And that is how you choose a carpet color when you have a cat. Did I make myself clear? If you choose your carpet color wisely, you will never have to vacuum again, thereby saving your sinuses hours of throbbing grief. You're welcome. If you found this helpful—or if you want further clarification—please tell my cat. He is looking forward to hearing from you.

Another way for employers to say, "No thanks (loser), we don't want you"

I'm discontented. I just found out about the Bright Score. Do you know about this? You probably do. As usual, I'm the last to catch on. On the Consumer Adoption Curve, I'm slower than the slowest laggard. I mean, I don't even have a data plan! Whatever. Anyway, the Bright Score (for those of you who may not have recently considered giving up all hope of self-employment success and applying for any job within 50 miles of your home) is a score calculated by a computer algorithm that lets employers know if you are a good fit for their job opening.

As you may remember, until six months ago, I taught business courses at a for-profit career college. I held that job for almost 10 years. And you may also recall that I recently earned a doctorate in Business Administration. I say this not to brag, but to remind you of my qualifications. I get job alerts from Indeed for faculty openings around town. It would be great to teach a couple classes while I'm developing my research business, right? Makes sense to me. So, I ask you, what better job to apply for than one like the one I had: teaching business courses at a career college. Seems like a classic no-brainer to me.

Notification of an opening appeared in my email inbox. I applied. One click took me to a web interface I had not seen before, presented by a company called Bright Score. I registered, a quick, painless process, and uploaded my resume. I deleted a few skills, added a few skills... and then I searched for the faculty opening I'd seen in the alert. A message came up: Calculating your Bright Score. (Cue Jeopardy music.) Bam. Say, what? My Bright Score for the faculty job was a paltry, measly, wholly inadequate 62! Epic fail!

As a consolation prize, Bright Score kindly suggested a couple jobs where I had a fighting chance (in the low 70s): a senior graphic designer for an unnamed company and a project supply assistant at Xerox. Okaaaay. I went back to my profile and tweaked my skills some more. I took out anything to do with art and graphic design and added skills related to teaching and education. Wham! Take that, Bright Score! Click calculate.... What! 63? No way!

In disgust, I searched for any job in the metro area for which I might actually qualify. You'll never guess what Bright Score suggested for me: Admissions Rep at the same darn for-profit college. How nutty is that? And my Bright Score was 83... Not Great, but slightly better than Good. Essentially a B+. Which means I probably could get an interview, were I inclined to try.

One thing Bright Score does not tell you is how to improve your score. They do tell you it is a combination of factors. It's not about just choosing the keywords that employers want to see. In fact, Bright Score analyzes the frequency and usage of key words, along with your experience and timelines. It also takes into consideration the structure of your resume itself, for example, length, grammar and spelling, and whether or not there is an objective. But they don't offer any tangible hints, like two-page resumes are a no-no. The secret sauce is hidden, and you only get five tries per month to improve your score. Sigh. I already used up one.

I think I will create a bogus resume, full of buzz words and upload that. I can test out the parameters. What happens if I go over one page? What happens if I add more jargon? What happens if I repeat many words and phrases from the job description? Ha! I'll get you, Bright Score! Hey, wait, what am I doing? I don't want to be an Admissions Rep or a supply assistant. I just wanted to teach a couple classes, for crying out loud. Curses, blocked again! I am being funneled into a tighter and tighter path, it feels like. Self-employment seems to be the only hope for me, but I am afraid success may be a long time coming. It will come, eventually, I have no doubt. But if I'm living under a bridge—or hiding out in my mother's spare bedroom, which may possibly be worse than the bridge—I may not be around to enjoy it.

Isn't it nice, though, to know now that I'm wasting my time applying for jobs like the one I had? What a gift from the universe. I don't really want a job like the one I had. And now it looks like I won't get one. Maybe there is a god.

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.

Remind me next time not to live on the north side of a mountain

I'm tired of living in the shade. Winters in the Love Shack are dim, even when the sun is shining. By all measures, it was an awesome, sunny winter day in the Pacific Northwest—50°, brilliant blue sky, sunshine... it's been a rainless winter so far, not good for next summer's water supply but excellent for the chronic malcontents who prefer to avoid winter weather. However, I'm sad to report that due to my location on the north side of the butte, even my light box can't dispel the gloom. The sun came and went so fast today I barely had time to bask and then it was gone behind the shoulder of Mt. Tabor. Remind me, if you meet me and I happen to be apartment-hunting, remind me not to live on the north side of a mountain ever again. I might as well be living in a cave.

It's possible, though, that my moroseness might be due partly to my ongoing efforts to get organized. It wasn't really a New Year's resolution of mine, but after I found out how many tasks my friend Carlita had completed last year, I got revved up and started a list of tasks I wanted to get done in 2014. Then I signed up for an online class on improving productivity and fell off the deep end into organizing hell.

The system proposed by the instructor is a well known system that everyone seems to know about except me. (I'm always late to the party, what can I say. I'm just not that connected, huddled here in my cave.)

The first step (besides admitting I am powerless over... accomplishment?) is to collect all my undone tasks, wherever they may be. Paper scraps, email, folders, notes in books... I don't even want to think about my journals. Collecting all my undone tasks in one place is a colossal task in itself. I've been at it for the better part of three days and made it through one journal. On the bright side, I've uncovered a lot of hidden gems that still seem shiny and new. However, most of the ideas I scribbled with such enthusiasm even just a month ago are now just dusty words on paper. What was I so enthused about? I can't remember. It's like that dream that seemed so vivid and meaningful at 6:00 a.m. that fades into absurdity after the first cup of coffee.

My physical desktop is almost clear (except for the computer, the external hard-drive, the monitor, the printer, the flatbed scanner, two speakers, a purple basket full of small scraps of blank paper [for writing to-do lists], three plastic chests of drawers full of a gajillion paper clips [for clipping to-do lists into clumps] plus other sundry office supplies... oh, and my tea cup [I am on a hiatal hernia-related hiatus from coffee]). So that is progress, right? I mean, I can see the fake wood veneer surface. That's something. So maybe this new organizing system is starting to work. Now if I can just find my round tuit. I know it's around here somewhere. Wait, let me add that to my list. Find.... round... (hey, how do you spell tuit?)

At the rate I'm going, it may take me the rest of 2014 just to compile the list of tasks I want to achieve. I'm pretty sure that is not the kind of productivity the designer of the organizing system was proposing. I'm fairly certain the point of all this task-collecting is to make it easier to finally get around to getting things done. I guess you could say I'm doing things in order to get ready to really do things. Hey. What do you know. I'm meta-doing!

Call me Square Peg: The chronic malcontent goes a-networking, again

For the past decade my personal mantra has been Do what interests you. Following the elusive muse hasn't always been easy. Identifying my interests can be challenging, especially when they conflict, for example, making art and paying the rent. Not mutually exclusive, I grant you, except in my case, where the art tends to be particularly unmarketable. Anyway, using Do what interests you is a holdover from my former life as an artist, and I've adapted it for my current life in higher education, business, and research. It still works as a mantra, but now I have another one, one that ups the stakes considerably. My new mantra is Do what frightens you.

As a demonstration of my commitment to doing what frightens me, last night I once again dove into the deep, dark, and murky cesspool I know as networking. There was an event at a restaurant in Northwest Portland, not an easy place to find parking, so I went all in and took the bus. The sun was setting as I got off at 11th and Alder. The air was cold and pre-foggy. I wore old Levis 501s that fit me like a glove, a too-tight, very uncomfortable, can't-sit-down-without-urping kind of glove. The chronic malcontent (me) got fat over the past few years. Too much sit down typing, not enough treadmill typing, what can I say. The unhappy byproduct of writing a dissertation is a muffin-top. That's why I wear pajamas all the time, but that's another story. I was cold in my too-tight jeans, but I gamely hiked the blocks from Alder to Glisan, figuring that the walking could only help, if I could keep from upchucking in the bushes along the way.

I got to the restaurant. Outside the big plank doors stood a man hawking copies of Street Roots, the newspaper the sales of which help get guys off the street. I knew I had a dollar in my dayplanner. Perfect. Except I couldn't find my dayplanner. I had switched bags in my quest to be cool, and I'd forgotten to put the leather folder into my knapsack. I rummaged around for five minutes while the guy hawked his newspaper to people who walked by him as if he weren't there. Finally, I apologized. He looked at me in disgust, and I went into the restaurant, feeling like a total loser.

“Are you here for the networking event?” The perky young woman at the desk eyed me up and down. I said yes, and she pointed to the rear of the room. I crossed between tables, barely taking in the bizarre Polynesian decor, and found a crowd of people packed into the Kontiki Room, listening to the speaker, a local marketing guru, talk about networking. Men and women in business attire sat at tables, stood along the walls, and even sat on the floor. I could see the audience quite well through floor-to-ceiling windows, but not the slides or the speaker himself, as I was at the back of the latecomer pack milling around in the Kontiki Room foyer, far from the action. Too many heads blocked my view.

I saw a long-haired gal with a clipboard standing in a clear area in the foyer outside the Kontiki Room. I asked her, “What time did it start?”

“The presentation started at 4:30. Networking is at 5:30.”

I kicked myself mentally. Apparently I had missed the whole presentation. I'd written 4:30 in my dayplanner, but when I checked online before I left the apartment, I'd seen only the time for networking and thus delayed going out to the bus. I could have been one of those people sitting in the Kontiki Room, taking notes like the good student I am, soaking up networking tips and pretending to myself that I was using my time wisely, making connections, letting myself become known.

Some other latecomers showed up. One girl stood alone. She looked approachable, so I approached.

“Did you come for the networking?” I asked, to break the ice. She smiled.

“I work with him,” she said, nodding toward the speaker, who looked very far away across the Kontiki Room. “I've seen the presentation before.”

Jackpot! Maybe better than meeting the man himself was meeting one of his minions.

I asked her if she had studied marketing in college. “Public relations,” she replied.

“Same thing, persuading people,” I said nonchalantly.

“You never know who you might meet,” she said, implying she might be looking for another job.

“It's a small community,” I hazarded.

Her eyes got big, and she nodded vigorously. “So true!” I felt a pang of envy that she was a part of that small community, and I was on the outside looking in. I moved away, and then jumped back before the crowd could absorb her. “Do you have a card on you?” She pulled out a business card. I handed her one of my own. She melted into the group as I sought a clear spot, away from the group.

Apparently there are other folks who gravitate toward the periphery. I made two more connections, one a guy who has a company that helps salespeople track and manage their leads. We talked about webinars. He asked me what platform I used to deliver my webinars. I had to confess I didn't have anything up and running yet. Another lost opportunity to promote my nebulous research business. We exchanged business cards.

The third connection was with a young man in a plaid suit who had been sitting near the back of the Kontiki Room during the presentation. He was standing in the open near me, so I smiled and asked what he had learned. He proceeded to tell me some tips he had gleaned from the seminar. He was just finishing an MBA at PSU, so we talked about PSU and completing degrees. He seemed interested in my dissertation topic, so I fumbled my way through an explanation, thinking to myself, I really need to write that 30-second elevator speech.

Once that interaction was over, I was exhausted. I was also hungry, thirsty, and my pants were still too tight. The only consolation is that I never had to sit down, or I am sure I would have barfed all over the Kontiki Room. Maybe there is a god. I cast one more look at the crowd, and then I headed across the restaurant toward the door. Outside the air was cold and refreshing. The homeless guy was gone. I put my hands in my pockets and started hiking the 11 blocks to Salmon to catch my bus.

I was nodding off at the back of the bus when a grizzled dark-skinned guy in the seat ahead of me turned around. “Are we heading toward downtown?” he asked me, brow crinkled.

I smiled. “No, downtown is back that way. You need to get off the bus, cross the street, and catch it going the other way.” He leaped up and headed toward the back door. As he exited he said, “You are going to be my wife, right?”

I didn't have time to respond before he was gone, but I said, “Right,” and laughed to myself as the bus continued plodding from stop to stop back up the hill toward home.

The consequence of starting a business: The trolls are after me!

One of the consequences of starting a business is that you can be found. I guess you could say that willingness to be found is a requirement of starting a business, but I think that is another topic. Today, I'm ruminating on the odd marketing practices of people who would like to use me and my business to make money, both legitimately and nefariously.

Some companies troll through the assumed business name registries and pelt the fledgling entrepreneurs with direct mail missives offering services for everything a new business needs. For example, I've received postcards, flyers, letters, and circulars from companies trying to sell me business card printing, internet access, plastic bags and twisty-ties, conference room rental, and credit cards.

So far I haven't purchased any of those things, but I might. You never know. New business owners are sometimes confused about what to do first, which makes them easy marks for predators. Especially the creditor predator variety. I'm fairly immune to credit card offers, but all it would take is one slip and I'd be sliding back into the giant black hole of unsecured debt that took me so long to crawl out of.

I welcome legitimate marketing offers, because they come from hungry entrepreneurs like me. There are some other marketing ploys that set me to head-scratching. Here's an example. I have a website that no one visits, according to the Google Analytics plug-in. I update the blog about once a month with inane posts that have little content value. However, odd comments have begun to appear, one or two a week, along the lines of Really like your blog, love so-and-so from such-and-such URL. Here's an example, misspellings intact:

Hi, Neat post. There іs a problem with your wеb site in internet explorer, might test this? IE still is the market leаder and a large component of othher folks will leave out уour magnificent writng due to this problеm.

That's pretty nice, huh? He/she is kindly letting me know that my website sucks in Internet Explorer, which is really a shame since my writing is magnificent! If my writing really had been magnificent, I might consider taking this post more seriously. And if the writer hadn't posted a URL that tracks back to some IP address in France that includes the words power play stats. Hmmmm.

Here's my favorite: 

I drop a comment whenever I especially enjoy a article on a blog or I haѵe something to add to the conversation. Usually it's triggered by the fire displayed in the post I read. And on this article [post name]. I was moved enοugh to post a comment :-P I actually do have a couple of questions for you if іt's okay. Could іt be only me or does it give the impression like some of thee respoonseѕ appear like writtten by brаin dead individuals? :-P And, іf you are posting at additional places, Ι'd like to follow everything new you have to post. Would you make a list the complete urls οf your soсial pages lіke your twitter feed, Facеbook page or linkedin profile?

Wow, I can relate to the part about comments written by brain dead individuals. If this commenter found “fire” in my post, I suspect he or she did not really read it, although I suppose fiery posts are in the mind of the reader. It's kind of sweet, though, don't you think? But dude, if you really cared about what I post in other places, please note the convenient links to Facebook and LinkedIn in the upper right hand corner. But really, don't bother, have a nice day.

And then there are the comments that mix random content with several URLs, like this:

Just over two years [URL] For writing it is best to use a felt tip pen with a fine point [URL] This learning experience provided me opportunities to provide pharmaceutical care [URL] I work with computers.

My friends in Minnesota are trying to infuse Facebook with poetry, a wonderful and worthy intention; but I wonder, maybe there is a new form of poetry coming into being, a mash up of art and commerce posted by bizarre humanoid robots in anonymous internet sweatshops in exotic locales around the world. My guess is that the writers of these poetic bits of nonsensical marketing probably don't intend to entertain me; probably they would prefer that I click one of those innocuous URL bombs, which will take me someplace I'd rather not go while adhering vermin and viruses to my trail so I inadvertently track back dirt into the Love Shack.

The other kind of message I repeatedly receive goes into my email inbox and it always starts with something like Attention Dearest One. Eagerly I read ahead to find out who has the temerity to send me an email with such an amusing greeting. If you follow the AIDA marketing communications model, the salutation is the attention-getter. The next paragraph is designed to stimulate my interest with a back-handed insult and an impassioned plea:

I am Charles David, Director of Operations, Eagles Security and Delivering Company, Austin, Texas. USA. It is explicable for you to grow apprehensive reading from me since there was no previous exchange between us. However, I implore your attention on the subject matter hereto contained.

The rest of the message contains, of course, the desire-provoking promise: Somehow this kind gentleman has been saddled with two trunks full of gold bars. Imagine that! And he is contacting me randomly to get some help disposing of said gold bars. Finally, the call to action: All he wants from me is some contact information. I can simply reply to his email and give him my name, address, phone, age, and occupation. I'm pretty sure this guy could then match up my info with whatever data he stole from Target and clean me out.

I can but shake my head in disbelief. It is inexplicable how anyone receiving such a message could believe that it was (a) from a real person, and (b) benevolent in intent. But you gotta love the naive use of what they must think is formal business English. I guess my response is to sigh and remark to myself that if it didn't work occasionally, they wouldn't keep doing it. They are marketers, after all.

Building my relationship network, one stupid event at a time

Last night I braved a little wind, a few raindrops, and horrifying 45° temps to do a little networking at the monthly meeting of the local chapter of a national organization called ODN (which stands for Organizational Development Network). The topic was on conflict resolution. I didn't attend for the topic, for the simple fact that I have no conflicts with anyone. Yes, that's right, the Love Shack is a conflict-free zone. The cat has signed an agreement, promising to lead a conflict-free lifestyle as long as he is on the premises. He is looking at me right now, wondering if he should start a conflict. (He dislikes it when I type.)

I'm always a bit manic when I go to networking events. Large rooms full of people make me skittish. If there is an educational component, I'm okay: I'm a good student. I can sit and zone out while taking notes and drawing pictures. The hardest moments are before and after the program, where one is expected to mingle and talk: building networks, I guess, although I confess I feel better when I'm just a lone node. But in the interests of developing relationships that may be valuable to my research business at some unknown point in the future, I showed up to do my best.

I entered the conference room and introduced myself to three women who sat at a square table. Two of the women (C. and T.) worked at a local conflict mediation center. They were colleagues of the presenter. The other person (V.) used to work with someone who used to work with someone who mentored the two women who work at the mediation center. I began to get the feeling that the conflict resolution field is fairly small, possibly insular, and definitely does not include me. No matter. I'm used to feeling like an outsider, with my goofy knit cap and fingerless gloves (socks), so I didn't hesitate, but plunged right in, determined to press forward with my mission: to network!

Someone (not me) mentioned the topic of emotional intelligence. I thought to myself, oh, that's a cool topic. I wonder how they measure it?

“What instrument do you use to measure emotional intelligence?” I asked politely, looking around the table.

T., an older dark-haired gal, looked at me over her little half-glasses. “Intuition,” she replied flatly. I was astounded.

“How is that working for you?” I asked lamely.

“Very well. After a while, you are able to tell...” She trailed off. Everyone laughed except me.

“We've found that giving people assessments isn't that helpful,” explained V. “People find out what they are good at, and they stop trying to improve.”

“But isn't a desire to improve a hallmark of emotional intelligence?” I asked, feeling somewhat perplexed.

“Yes, I guess you are right,” she admitted, which of course made me feel like I'd scored a point, but underneath I was feeling dismay. I've been thinking that perhaps the ODN people represented a viable target market for my research services. Now I find out they don't even do research? It can't be! Had I committed the classic marketing faux pas of assuming that I know what people need and want? I can't easily sell them on something they don't believe they need. It's like trying to persuade someone who doesn't already eat cereal to buy a new brand of corn flakes. Argh! How can these people help organizations improve without doing some type of assessment? Here I thought I was the shark in a pool of smiling, trusting minnows! How could I have been so wrong?

An answer of sorts came moments later. Apparently a really big shark had beaten me to the pool of unsuspecting minnows. A portly gentleman got up and introduced us to a company (I'll call it Blabla, because I don't really want to give them any publicity, considering that they may be a potential competitor [or employer] of mine someday). Blabla offers tools for OD and HR consultants, a whole slew of fancy tools, all neatly packaged with shiny modern technology (none of this old-fashioned paper and pencil stuff!), and ready for these consultants to use in their practices.

These sharks at Blabla are doing what I want to do, except they are a lot bigger. And I presume they actually know what they are doing. Although you wouldn't know it by the “sales pitch” the portly man gave to the group. He was immediately followed by a younger version of himself (could it truly have been his son?), who proceeded to flatter the group by repeatedly saying, “you guys here in Oregon are the test group!” Maybe I should have felt flattered, but after hearing us addressed as “you guys” five times in as many sentences, I started to think if I just keep at this research thing, I could eventually outlast them just on sheer grammar skills. If he had committed the ultimate sin—“your guyses'”—I would have stood up and walked out.

The announcements ended. The program began. A tall slender man with a pleasant manner spoke into a clip-on microphone as he walked us through a series of PowerPoint slides. The rest of the evening proceeded smoothly. I came away with a handout and a few pages of scribbles, a couple business cards (flagrant networking on my part: Hey, got any more of those business cards? Wanna link up on LinkedIn?), and then it was back out into the embarrassingly warm rain to feel my way home in the bleary darkness.

There's another networking event early tomorrow morning. I'm making no promises.