Just in case they Google their names

I went to a play last night, and later took a photo of the main actor, the playwright, a good friend and another man who writes and acts too. I don't have any of them as Facebook friends; they aren't on Twitter or LinkedIn. I don't know their emails or snail mail addresses. What to do? How can I show them this fab photo?

Then I had a clever idea. I'll put it on my blog and list their names. I'll bet you one of them will do a Google on his own name in the future and they'll see this pic.

The guys in the photo are Chris Blakeley, Justin Butcher, Andrew Harrison and Murray Watts. Now I'll just wait and see what happens....

Here are a few of us before dinner. Mel and I were late because no trains were running from Reading. Finally we got on a stopping train that took hours and was jam packed. A woman sat across from us and talked non-stop. Her voice had a grating edge to it that made her verbal diarrhea much harder to bear. And it wasn't as if she was saying anything that was even remotely interesting.

"For all my faults," I said to my husband as we suffered through the trip, "at least I'm not boring." (He had to agree.)

We finally arrived at Paddington, too late to eat with our friends at their trendy restaurant in Islington, so we had to buy some Burger King in a bag and eat it while running to catch the underground.

We just had time for a drink and to pose for a silly photo before the play:

I got a bit out of hand after the play. I was so excited to be hanging out with artists that I got over-excited. (Plus one of the guys took a couple of bottles of wine into the theater, and we helped ourselves during the play.) One of the women there is a documentary maker, and I'd just seen her latest effort on TV without knowing who made it. When I realized who she was, I fawned over her with excitement.

I work with computer geeks all day, every day, so when I run across a bunch of creative people, I can get a little out of control. (I'm calmer today.)

This isn't a Holiday Inn

As a good mother and wife, I have little trash cans placed all over the house so my dear family can dispose of used items easily. But that doesn't mean they can throw large amounts in a small bin and just walk away, expecting some cleaner to come along later and empty it.

My husband threw a bunch of papers and books into a little trash can one day then walked out of the room.

"Who do you think is going to empty that?" I inquired sweetly. "This isn't a Holiday Inn, you know. No one is going to magically appear and clean all this up after you."

Now that's one of our favorite phrases to use. My son drinks vast quantities of water and throws the bottles in his bedroom bin, and they pile up for years before anyone finds them.

My husband remonstrated with him one day. "This isn't a Holiday Inn, you know," I heard him say. (that made me smile; at least my husband has internalized my message)

But last night, my son filled his bin up to overflowing again. So he thought he'd be clever and write a note to go with it that he realized this wasn't a Holiday Inn but could I throw it away for him anyway? Of course I did and took a pic to show you.

Electrocuting an Elephant

I watched the grisly footage of Edison's electrocuting an elephant to prove that AC electricity was dangerous last night on TV.


(Poor Topsy!)

Edison was single-minded in his contention that only DC electricity would work. It reminded me of a talk I'd attended earlier in the day where an entrepreneur read some lines from W.H. Murray, a mountain climber during World War 2. He wrote:

... but when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money— booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!

The entrepreneur's point was that you have to be fully committed to your idea, and after that point, you can do great things. But I'm sure he didn't mean be so sure of your idea that you electrocute an elephant to prove it.

Working in a blue-chip cocoon

I've been working in such a blue-chip cocoon for the past six years. Working at Nokia's HQ in England with its on-site gym and classes, hairdresser, varied restaurants and delis, I've had it so good. You can even bring in all your Christmas presents, and the concierge will wrap them for you. All you need to do is put them under the tree and wait for the kids to wake up on Christmas morning.

I can have all my packages and mail delivered here, and a nice man brings them to my desk for me to sign for them. But I'm being laid off, so must leave my lovely workstyle this year.

I had my first day of post-Nokia reality on Friday. I went to pitch for some writing work (it would be for Interpol; how cool is that?), and after the meeting, a young guy sidled up to me and asked a bit snidely, "And where did we get you from?"

I'm not used to that. He doesn't know my work history or my current position. He just thinks I'm some Southern hick with not much of a writing portfolio coming in to steal some work. This was the first time I'd tried to get work without my protective Nokia badge and identity protecting me, and I felt exposed.

Later that day, a guy knocked on the door to deliver some fertilizer that the gardener had ordered. I didn't know anything about it, and he treated me like shit because he thought it was OK to do that to me -- was it because I was at home on a work day so maybe I'm powerless?

I felt like the day had been a Reality Check -- one of my first days without my Nokia badge around my neck to protect me like a rosary.

It's going to be tough to be an ex-Nokian. I am not looking forward to it.

Did you know Steve?

I was on my crutches trying to get to a 10:00 meeting at the office today when a guy I met on my project-management course last week spoke to me.

"Did you know Steve?" he asked.

I suddenly felt weak. "Why did you say DID?" I asked, knowing before I finished the sentence that my friend who had been battling cancer was dead.

What a terrible way to hear the news. This guy had no idea that Steve was a good friend of mine and that I'd been one of the first people he'd told about his cancer diagnosis. He'd kept coming into work even through chemo - and he was always on the bike next to mine at spinning class at the office gym. And we used to tease him when he toppled over doing the balancing part of Pilates class (this was before he was ill -- we didn't tease him after that).

When he first told me he had a tumor, well, I never thought he would die from it just a few months later.

It's so upsetting to everyone who knew him. He was so kind, always cheerful, never complained about his lot, ever. Now I have to walk past his desk every day, and he won't be there ever again.

Kitchen Confidential: Bourdain's view of vegetarians

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by chef Anthony Bourdain is the perfect book to read when you're at home with a broken foot taking pain killers. It's abrasive and completely unsubtle. There's no hidden plot to figure out, no imagery or metaphors. Take for example, his view of vegetarians:

Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn....Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It's healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I've worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold.

These sort of books and the National Enquirer is about all I can handle reading this week.

Taking no chances on Fri the 13th -- staying in bed

I have enough accidents as it is -- breaking two feet in one year in separate incidents -- so on Friday the 13th, I'm not even getting out of bed.

My doctor told me to rest this week and take my painkillers but I had to go into the office to take a Prince2 project management course. It involved lots of studying at night too. Finally yesterday I had to throw the towel in and say I wasn't coming in for the advanced exam work. I did pass the foundation exam, but barely -- with the worst marks in the entire class. But still, when I took my lunch break, the first thing I did was update my LinkedIn profile to say "Prince2 qualified."

(It's dog-eat-dog in our capitalist world. I'm losing my job at Nokia soon so I need any qualification I can get to put on my CV/resume.)