This Isn't a Performance Review, Is It?

If the reader has visited here often, s/he knows I like words. Oh, I fairly consume the morsels, savoring the flavor, masticating them to a new consistency, sieving them through filters of dictionary, thesaurus, synonym, antonym and used-in-a-sentence. I love to take on new (to me) lexeme as my own small badges of personality and I love - love - to engage in wordplay, using phrases that don't seem the right ones to illustrate a point, or taking terms somewhat out of context to infer new meaning. A lot of paper and virtual images cross my desk, some of which please me and some not. I am pretty quick, glancing, digesting, concluding, filing for storage or recycling. My workplace is still new to me in some ways. I don't know all the tricks like "Oh, unplug the laser printer at night or it goes poltergeist." or "That coffeemaker on the left spews water like a pump." "No fooling," thought I as I mopped myself off. So one of the office machines suffered a contretemps and began to regurgitate hundreds of pages of stuff. I clicked on "Cancel", I hit the "End" key, I powered the rascal down by turning it off . . . to no avail. That apparatus was fully intent upon sending forth its spawn and all I could do was clear the output tray for a long time.

I am not one to dawdle. Though I can easily over-agitate, I seek some balance between catatonic and manic. I try to keep busy enough in the head to make life interesting and fun and quirky and droll. As the pages flew, some words and themes began to grab my attention. Originally, I'd deemed this output to be unknowable (by me) computer bullshit - you know - UCBS. But could it possibly be subliminal stimuli, an evaluation of my worth after two weeks of sterling performance? There were some 100,000 words that said absolutely nothing. I was sure of it. But then . . there seemed a suggestion that I am not stacked (true), that I am offensive and commanded to flush. A fairly harsh assessment, likely not deserved. Intentionally null? Oh, I don't think so. I didn't set out purposely to be that. Then came the comment that I needed to clean up my features (which it seemed I was able to begin and end) and was intentionally blank! The coup de grace, however, was that I have no installed memory. What the . . ? David walked by. He takes the temperature of a room by looking at my face. He says he never has to ask me how things are going and we must never enter me in a poker game. "What's wrong?" "Oh, nothing. Just a funky machine. It's been a couple of weeks now, David. Am I doing OK enough?" Big grins all around. All right, I can go back to my work now.

So, I love me some Mike. Mr. Mickey Man has introduced me to more new (to me) music than anyone else I can think of. And he pays attention to what the other music lover enjoys. If I'm not mistaken, his e-mail said nothing. Simply a link. Oh! Oh, my! New. New Lu.

The imagery, tempo and tone put me in mind of her 2003 tune, Ventura, which is important music to me.

Look, folks, I get it. You like her or you don't like her. That's OK. It takes all kinds to make a world. What I love among so many other things: she puts her age/generation right out there: " . .I'm 57 but I could be 7 years old . ."

Something bad happened to me this week. Another human being behaved really badly and sent terribly disturbing bad thoughts careening in my direction through the mist. I didn't deserve bad treatment, though I got it. I was supported by women friends, fellow AAs and I got through without drinking.

More, more to tell. I have a writing deadline of 9-11. For on THE 9-11 ('01 ~ it's been nearly 10 years) my tiny, personal world changed. And I'm trying to tiptoe up to writing about it. I am both compelled and hesitant. A terrible dilemma.

And, p.s.: some of the photos of Lucinda show an eroded chick a la Grace Slick in her dotage. Other, carefully artistic Lu - man! Could I be as glorious as that?

Signing off, a jumbly Leslie Morgan . . appreciated today (by others who expressed themselves in different ways) sufficiently to make me willing to try on tomorrow as another day . . .