A New Bird on the Stones

A new bird on the stones
Weak and fading in the heat
Too young to know lost
Only just cognizant of alone

Strength enough to persevere
To make it to this hour
And yet unable to overcome
The elements of nature's plan

I consider moving it into shade
For a more comfortable death
But I concede all that will do
Is give a predator a cooler meal

Knowing it's too late to save it
I stanch a tear and turn away
Sometimes the hardest thing to do
Is nothing, and remain still.

Why I Don’t Live at the P. O.

During my visit to the local post office today, I was reminded of a fabulous short story by Eudora Welty entitled "Why I Live at the P. O." (which happens to be a great study in linguistics, as it's written in the dialect of wartime Mississippi).

As I filled out my documentation with the oh-so-stylish tethered pen, I heard out of the corner of my right ear a woman's voice joking with someone else in line, apparently in response to their advancement in the line and a subsequent fake-out by a clerk, "Well good, I was afraid she was going on break."

The clerk scenery at the P. O. never really changes, so I find it much more entertaining to watch the customers. I initially deemed us to be a rather unexciting group as I moved into the lead spot in the line. We were just a handful of unremarkable customers, but one did catch my eye; perhaps it was the summer plaid blazer she was wearing, or her shock of pearl grey bisque hair. She was a little over five feet tall, with a wide, tanned leather face and narrow eyes, and an equally-wide, casually upswept hairdo. By all appearances, she was a seemingly unassuming octogenarian who stood poised before the female clerk second from the right, from whom she was attempting to purchase a book of stamps.

She asked for stamps. The clerk brought out a sheet. Then the world stopped for a few minutes.

The woman examined the stamps and frowned, while some invisible hand turned her volume knob up two clicks.

"Why, these aren't regular stamps! I don't want these! Give me some regular stamps, wouldya!" She waved the stamps in the air for emphasis. The customer had a surprisingly good natured lilt to her drawl, on the verge of a laugh or a chuckle. I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head a bit, studying the customer's body language. No hostility detected.

But the pretty female clerk didn't know whether to laugh or press the hidden alarm button. She smiled a waxy, vacant smile at the customer, and stepped away to try to find a different sheet. The second the clerk turned her back, the customer's volume shot up three more clicks.

"Excuse me. Excuse me! I didn't know you were going on break."

Where I stood, I felt my mouth drop open and my eyes widen in surprise. And then an uncontrollable smile started its tic at the corners of my mouth. I was transfixed.

The clerk immediately presented another selection. The customer presented another display of waving the stamps in her left hand, showing them to her clerk and the one to her left.

"Don't y'all have just plain ol' stamps? You know, the kind with the flags on them? I want the ones with the flags on them."

And silly me, here I was thinking she was referring to the licky kind of stamps when she called them "regular." The female clerk fought a smile. The male clerk next to her popped his head up over the divider and asked her what the customer needed, while the customer continued talking about regular stamps, and waving the obviously irregular stamps around.

The male clerk smiled at his peer and told her he had some flag stamps, and the female clerk looked relieved. But the customer heard him, and before he could hand the stamps over the divider, told her clerk she was going over there, because he had regular stamps, the ones with flags, and she immediately left her position and resumed it one station to her left. On cue, I left the line and went to the abandoned station with the female clerk.

The octogenarian chatted at the male clerk incessantly as I made my transaction. The elderly woman's volume knob had been turned down to its original position, so I didn't really pay attention to what she was saying. My clerk still looked a little frazzled, though, so I leaned down over the counter and whispered to her that I thought she could use a break. She cracked a smile and nodded.

As the male clerk was completing his customer's transaction, for some reason I couldn't ascertain, he had to get something from another counter which prompted an immediate

"Excuse me. Excuse me! I didn't know you were going on break!"

And not just once. Twice this time, with two more upward clicks each. When she spoke, I detected the subtle laugh under her words, and she was waving her empty right hand rapidly back and forth in the air. Her steamer-trunk-sized patchwork leather purse with its silver horseshoe buckle rested on the counter, rendered immobile by her left hand. The clerk hurried back to her.

As I stood one station to her right, I found myself giggling quietly, feeling something akin to admiration at her sheer brazenness. I completed my purchase, tapped the counter, and told the female clerk in my normal voice, "Okay, you can go on break now." She gave me a wide grin and thanked me, giving me a wave.

Leaving the P. O., still giggling, I thought about the silver-haired tornado I had just experienced. And I liked her. A lot. She communicated well, she was effective, and she kept us all on our toes. She got what she wanted and didn't have to be nasty to do it. In some weird way, she helped others meet her expectations. And she was a snappy dresser, too. That's the kind of woman I can only hope to be at that age: five feet of dynamite, with dentures made of brimstone.

As inexplicably tickled as I was, though, I realized she had a very valid point. As we age, our time becomes much more valuable to us. I imagine that at her age, every minute we spend on this side of the dirt counts. I think that's why I get so exasperated with self-centered people who thrive on wasting other people's time, particularly mine.

It's funny, but this encounter made me remember the exact moment I entered into adulthood.

It happened the first time I put on a watch.

Perspective

I saw the most frightening beast today
The likes of which I've never seen
Outside of nightmares or horror films

Fascinated, I used a camera
To examine it without getting too close
Lest I be eviscerated

Its cruel claws and proboscis
Its wretched legs and indifferent eyes
A killing machine, to be sure

And then I changed perspectives
Only to learn that it wasn't real
It was simply the husk of something former

My trepidation turned to laughter
As I chided myself aloud
For being afeared of such a tiny ghost.

Mr. Toady Revisited

When I arrived home this evening, I was quite surprised to see Mr. Toady sitting in my parking place. He's never done that before, and I was thinking he must have some big brass toadyballs to commandeer such a dangerous spot in which to enjoy his bug buffet. As I mentioned previously, we have a good rapport, so I'm always on the lookout for his safety and I parked well away from him.

I greeted him as I always do, he gave me a solemn look of "hmph" in reply, and I began carrying my parcels into the garage. On the second trip, I glanced to my right, and did a double-take. Mr. Toady had apparently sprinted the width of the driveway while my back was turned, and now sat serenely on the other side of the parking area. I shrugged and walked around the front of the car.

And there sat Mr. Toady.

But if Mr. Toady is over here . . .



then over there must be . . . could it be? A Mrs. Toady!



Now knowing that there is a Toady family, I of course had to see which one I had photographed in the drainpipe. I grabbed my camera and shot blindly in the dark, unconcerned about the flash since I had learned from a friend that amphibian retinas aren't damaged by bright lights; consequently, they are used in flash-type test scenarios quite a bit.

I photographed Mr. Toady first because he was closer. He was particularly active, and frankly, got a little peeved with me and the camera flash. I don't know if you've ever seen a miffed toad, but he was kind of funny. His front feet were on tiptoe and his elbows (do toads have elbows?) were pushed outwards from his body – like a little Mr. Toady Universe – thrusting him into a nearly vertical position. He shoved his head back into his neck, like a turtle. I guess this was his way of making himself appear bigger. He was probably chuckling to himself at his effectiveness as I drifted across the driveway to see Mrs. Toady.

She was a lovely specimen. A little more plump than her husband, and most accommodating of my photographic efforts. She sat patiently as I tried to capture her image in the dark.

By the time I finished with Mrs. Toady, Mr. Toady had decided he was within his rights to explore the confines of our garage, and I returned to find him perched on the concrete directly beneath the open garage door. With visions of frogs in blenders and miniature guillotines, I attempted to herd Mr. Toady out of the path of the door and back into the driveway. My gentle pleas for him to move were wasted . . . he wasn't having it.

I touched his back right leg and he jumped six inches away from the garage. I touched him again, and he jumped another six. Then he turned halfway towards me and just glared. I was confused, because just a few weeks ago I had touched him to make him get out of the way, and he didn't budge. In fact, he rather seemed to enjoy being petted, so this aggressive behavior didn't make sense. And then I realized I had most likely petted Mrs. Toady before, not Mr. Toady.

Hopeful that I had taken at least one usable shot of both the Mr. and the Mrs., I double checked Mr. Toady's location and closed the garage door so they could finish their bug buffet in peace.

No, it's not the Apocalypse. And, no, I still won't kiss him . . . after all, he's a married fellow. Oh, and lest I forget, it was Mr. in the drainpipe. I could tell by the markings on his chest.

Gimme Real

I have a confession to make.

I'm not really a blogger.

I despised the fundamental concept of blogging when its popularity surged years ago. What a ghastly display of narcissism and selfishness I perceived it to be! That anyone could deem themselves to be so special that others would seek them out and flock en masse to their site, just to read what they had for breakfast, was appalling to me. Even more mortifying was the lack of responsibility and accountability demonstrated by many in the blogosphere. The very word blog conjured up images of something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of my shoe: Hold up a minute, I stepped in some blog.
That said, however, I appreciated the innovation behind those formative weblogs that dealt with locus, more than focus. But online diaries? I found them to be highly offensive to my sensibilities, perhaps because I intimately knew someone who manipulated and abused the trust of his readers.

I have always argued against the ideal of "virtual community". I believe that real community can be enhanced by, but never replaced with, interactions available in the virtual world. The veiled anonymity afforded us within virtual communities spawns stunted social skills and the abandonment of social conscience. Real people, and real relationships, require face to face interaction: body language, discourse, honesty, and accountability.

I think many folks, as they slowly lose their grip on the real world at the hands of technology, substitute virtual interaction in its place, and are inclined to give too much – or the wrong kind of – information in an effort to validate their "real-ness" to people they don't even know, and probably never will. I'm observing that many people have evolved beyond mere co-dependency; rather, they have become universally-dependent, requiring the validation of strangers in order to determine their self-worth.

As I began to tentatively wiggle my toes in the blogosphere, I made a promise to myself that I would not become universally-dependant. I know my worth, and I know that it is ultimately determined by me and my actions, not what some anonymous person thinks or says, or whether I achieve a quota of views in any given day.

I began to write for me. I wrote to understand, more than to be understood. And after a while, I found my voice and adopted a surprisingly affectionate and somewhat tolerant view towards blogging. At the very least, I try to construct meaningful social commentary, and deconstruct changes like the migration to virtual community. As I mentioned in an ancient blog, if anyone else likes what they read here, I consider it a bonus. And if they don't, that's okay, too; they are under no contractual obligation to read what I write.

The contemplative comments spurred by my last post reminded me of a question posed by another friend in response to answers on a survey I posted recently. He wondered why I would consider walking down a street nude, yet not consider posing nude for a magazine.

My unequivocal response? Permanence.

It is a fairly safe bet that if you compromise yourself in a virtual community or relationship, at least one other person has captured the act. As a result, the one-night-stand writing exercise cybersex that so many people indulge in because it's not really cheating (pfffft), or the borderline-pornographic photos that some people like to share with the world, or the slam against a co-worker is on at least one other hard drive somewhere. Folks, that's permanence. The act of preserving something virtual makes it real. Real is truth. Truth doesn't go away when you log off of your computer. My personal rule of thumb is I will not post anything that I wouldn't say to someone's face, or stand up and defend in a court of law.

Meaningful.

Permanence.

Anything else is just virtual graffiti, bytes scratched out in thoughtless haste, verbal or visual spoor forever staining the cache of the virtual world. A caricature of who we really are.

I think of some of the profiles and blogs I have read, posted by females who don't comprehend that they are setting women back for decades for the sake of a little anonymous attention, or posted by males who are incapable of grasping the concept that yeah, it really is cheating. People who believe anything they read or hear, sometimes at the expense of someone they'll never know.

Meaningful permanence . . . the difference between graffiti and art.

Something to Consider

From today's Wall Street Journal Online. Enjoy!
________________________________________________

"OMG -- My Boss Wants to 'Friend' Me On My Online Profile"
Cubicle Culture by Jared Sandberg
The Wall Street Journal
July 10, 2007; Page B1

Paul Dyer was always able to hold off his boss's invitations to party by employing that arms-length response: "We'll have to do that sometime," he'd say.

But when his boss, in his 30s, invited Mr. Dyer, 24 years old, to be friends on the social-networking sites MySpace and Facebook, dodging wasn't so easy. On the one hand, accepting a person's request to be friends online grants them access to the kind of intimacy never meant for office consumption, such as recent photos of keggers and jibes from friends. ("Still wearing that lampshade?")

But declining a "friend" request from a colleague or a boss is a slight. So, Mr. Dyer accepted the invitation, then removed any inappropriate or incriminating photos of himself -- "I'd rather speak vaguely about them," he says -- and accepted the boss's invitation.

Mr. Dyer, it turns out, wasn't the one who had to be embarrassed. His boss had photos of himself attempting to imbibe two drinks at once, ostensibly, Mr. Dyer ventures, to send the message: "I'm a crazy, young party guy." The boss also wore a denim suit ("I'd never seen anything like it," Mr. Dyer says) and posed in a photo flashing a hip-hop backhand peace sign.

It was painful to watch. "I hurt for him," says Mr. Dyer.

Like email and "buddy lists" before them, social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace provide a definition of the word "friend" so expansive that it includes perfect strangers. Yet, strangers are the easy part. It can be a lot creepier to interact intimately with someone you sort of know than someone you don't know at all.

"Nothing changes when a stranger invites you to be a friend," says Nina Singh, a market-research consultant. But when one of her clients "friended" her, she saw a semierotic photo of him topless, posed and softly lit. "When you see your client's pubic bone, something has changed."

Victor Sanchez, 54, a senior development director, was once invited to join a site and was surprised to see a photograph of a younger colleague's seahorse tattoo. "Sometimes it's good to learn things about a colleague much later -- or never at all," he says.

These networking sites assist existing social relationships, letting people easily plan events, share pictures and keep up-to-date with far-flung friends. Once they penetrate the office, however, such sites can create awkward moments, particularly with colleagues who commit the social felony of attempted hipness. Dare I say, "Whatup, homey?"

When it comes to the boss, there is a real dilemma. You're caught between a career-limiting rejection of virtual friendship or a career-limiting access to photos of yourself glassy-eyed at a party. "All these social relationships -- apples and oranges -- are getting crammed into one category of friends," says Tom Boellstorff, associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, who is writing a book on the virtual community Second Life.

After one senior marketing coordinator at a law firm was invited by one of the lawyers to be his friend, she felt compelled to accept the invitation, even though she had no intention of socializing with him outside the office. He remarked once after an office meeting that he noticed she had a boyfriend, as listed on her online profile.

"It was strange," she says. "I was like, 'Why are you on Facebook?'"

Once "friended" by a colleague, people feel compelled to employ privacy features -- which itself can be a snub -- or to sanitize their online profiles -- which is akin to hiding something under the bed. The same marketing coordinator removed college pictures of herself doing a keg stand -- a handstand on top of a beer keg for a direct mouth-to-tap connection.

Prospective employers also seem to have no compunction conducting searches on job applicants before they call them in for interviews. "We'll Google them and I know that we've done MySpace searches," says attorney Caroline Kert of prospective hires.

She's mostly looking for slams against a former employer or exposed proprietary information. She says she'd never hold against applicants something like, say, a photo of them wearing a fur bikini. Good thing. Ms. Kert, a regular at the Burning Man Festival, has pictures of herself sporting just that on MySpace.

J.D. Lloyd, a law student working at a firm, isn't taking any chances. At 6-foot-2 and 250 pounds, he removed a photo of himself in a Florida Marlins baseball jersey that was a mere "youth large." "It was tight," he says. "There may or may not have been midriff in some of those pictures."

It used to be that employees were told to keep their personal lives out of work. Now, some bosses beg for it. Data analyst Valerie Jewett, 23, accepted a boss as a friend even though she likes to keep her personal and professional lives separate.

He's a nice guy, she says, but his late-30s ungrooviness was evident when he wrote a message to her on the "wall" on her homepage. The message made her roll her eyes. "What a ko-wink-i-dink to find y'all on here! Yeehaw!!"

• Email me at Jared.Sandberg@wsj.com. For a discussion on today's column, go to WSJ.com/Forums. To see past columns, please go to CareerJournal.com.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118401324654861242.html