I am ok, in case I worried you. Better TV is not the real answer. Naturally. Getting at the piece of knowledge is the real answer. Solving the problem, getting the answer is the real answer. The real answer is coughing up the hairball of (insert feeling word here) and analyzing the knowledge attached.

I like the new doctor-doctor (not a shrink, btw), but she “misdiagnosed” the feeling when, after a 5-minute acquaintance, she offered me anti-anxiety meds. We medicate feelings now that it’s 1984. (Oh wait. My watch stopped.) But have you ever been somewhere snowy enough that the people installed flaggy things to show where the road stopped and the cliff started? Why would you yank out those flags before Spring? Cause that’s all that reaching for the pill bottle does, America. So knock it the heck off. (Unless you’re *actually psychotic.* In which case, take your meds.)

I am not an anxious person. What I am is an angry person. I’m awake at 4:30 and 5 a.m. out of frustration, not worry. But I can make YOU anxious about something. If you were me, you’d be me. (Oh snap.)

Now that we’ve set that straight, Jane, may we ask what you’re pissed off about THIS time? (Why, soitenly.)

You know what’s pissing me off? Gender. Gender is pissing me right the heck off.

No, wait. Hear me out. I’m a foremost expert. It’s a topic I was FORCED to begin studying at age 2, when I moved on base at the then all-male U.S. Air Force Academy as a faculty brat. Air Forced. And then 1975, age 18—though gender STILL not my conscious theme—going to Mount Holyoke College, all female, all the time, since 1837 (oh. well. faculty is both genders. 5 ½ of the most glorious years of my life, I’m afraid. (B.A. & M.A. Largely downhill ever since.) Gender became my theme in about Oct. of 1975.)

Majority guy household since 1993 (not even a female cat since 2006). And 96.66% female profession since 1990. MAYBE if you were female and USAFA class of 1980 do you have something to tell me about gender. But only maybe.

Now, guys wage war. And guys? War is idiotic, so could you stop?? Idiotic. And menstruation envy, btw. But after 16 years of an all-guy family, I’m starting to understand why men fight with women. Just because society pushes us into a cramped and uncomfortable corner, doesn’t mean we have to assume the shape of that corner. Put your clothes back on, drop the eyelash curler, and start putting serious time into the blob between your ears. And engage, truly engage, with your fellow human beings. They’re all you got.

Because here’s the miracle of The Guy. The Guy can take 11 monster egos—MONSTER, I’m-a-soccer-star egos—and form a Team. These are the monster egos that brought us GUYS taking off their clothes in the sports arena. But they also know how to love their brother, and women could take a lesson. Women don’t habitually have teamwork in their cramped corner, because of their form of War. Our form of War. Or for some other reason, IDK. Whereas men are lagging on thou shalt not kill, they are out ahead with love thy neighbor; you heard it here first.

We’re getting close to the piece of knowledge in the hairball here. Yes, earlier this month, yet another person in NAPO made obvious to me her sheer contempt for me. Since she’d been struggling to make this contempt apparent since about June, it was particularly galling. (If she’s on Facebook, she’s not a Friend of mine, so no, if you’re reading this here, it’s not you.)

NAPO is my 96.66% female professional organization. And you know what you get a lot of from NAPO? Aloof. Air of mute superiority. Silly, silly, schoolgirl antics. And attempts to institutionalize the sticking of the nose in the air. (Margaret Lukens may be nodding reluctantly at this; sorry if others are losing me.)

Where a guy would say “Campbell you suck, go the eff away,” a woman wishes to say the same thing but mutters something UNTRUE, and it’s supposed to be your fault if you are trusting, and complimentary, enough to believe it. That is dirty pool. I have no respect for that whatsoever. I don’t care why you are lying; stop lying. Cowardly. A very deep betrayal. The guy’s obnoxiosity may be juvenile, but it’s not sneaky. Between sneaky and juvenile, which is the more sinister? I say sneaky is every time.

So there it is. Have I told this frustrating individual that I am “frustrated” with her? Yes I have, in so many words. I have so far gotten more mute air of superiority, but thanks for the suggestion.

Did I say prepare for rant. I do believe I did . . .

It has come to my attention that The Ten Commandments are a little soft on lying.  "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor"??  Could we have one or two MORE loopholes??

If it's not sworn testimony, if the subject of your false witnessing isn't a neighbor, it's ok??  I could use just a little more guidance here.

The first 3 decades of my life were about soloing.  Learning to write, do math, read, answer test questions, be an individual.  But I think the phase I'm in now involves working with other people, and all those other things I learned look different from this level.

Writing is pointless if you can't compel anyone to read.  The only math I care about now involves balance sheets and the like; but lacking the collaborative part of this math--the conventions for capturing info--I'm lost.  And what should I read: what everyone else has read, or something additional.  What if my interpretation differs from theirs?  Will there be a chance to explore that?  The biggest test now seems to be how many people I can make my way among, seeking and finding, asking and being answered, knocking and entering doors.  And being an individual--differing--seems inevitable, but again, no longer the biggest test.

Having a place among many is very much more difficult.  "Next level" doesn't quite do it.  "Whole new dimension" comes a LITTLE closer.  I keep thinking in cliches like breaking eggs to make omelets.  And ancient pieces of wisdom like a friend to all is a friend to none (Google says that's Aristotle).  Learning is so PAINFUL.

But hey, no pain, no gain.  (Cliches are life's bandaids.)

Two months have gone by since my last post.  A consistent blogger I guess I'm not.

I'm not really going to write an essay on the why I hate Presbyterians theme, but I have certainly expressed my state of mind by making up that title.

A fourteen-year-old boy recently died of an infection here in Montgomery county.  His family asked whether a service could be held at my church, and the pastor said yes.  The service lasted for an hour and a half, and the sanctuary was packed.  A reception went on for at least two hours past that.

I was sought after the fact for writing up guidelines about what constitutes "finger food," guidelines that presumably could be passed out to the next grieving family.  It has been requested that quiche be disallowed.

I think better ways need to be found to express our grief; I believe pastoral counseling may well be in order.

A procedural note:  the Session--a group of church people dubbed elders--needs to vote to schedule, or reschedule, communion.  Apparently they don't need to vote on opening the church for a memorial service, though.  Communion is a ritual dating back 19 and 3/4 centuries, so it baffles me that a vote needs to be taken year by year as to whether it's still a good idea, at least in the context of much larger occurrences being at the pastor's sole discretion.  Whole different quiche-crumb-vacuuming profile, for instance.

I flew from DC to Detroit to Myrtle Beach in November.  I love flying, but I don't do well with sleep deprivation.  I wrote a long blog that made no sense when you read it.  Here's what I was trying to say:

I think the economy may be in so much trouble because of a simple failure to do good bean-counting, multiplied by hundreds of millions of people.  I'm not an economist; I find economics just as boring as almost everyone else does.  But what I've seen in the course of organizing over the last decade convinces me that lots of people are doing lots of magical thinking.  They can buy and buy, and they won't run out of space, or attention span, or any other resource you need to be a responsible owner of stuff.  They similarly think they can spend and spend, and the money will come in eventually to pay for it.  I'm not saying I'm much different; a little different, though.

The country looks somewhat organized from the air.  Houses always look a whole lot better from the outside too, though.  It starts to break down somewhere inside.  Sometimes right in the front hall, sometimes just past that, sometimes by the bedrooms, sometimes not until you open closets or attics or crawl spaces.  I perceive this to be a function of rank and class of the people exposed to the spaces, at least sometimes.  The public show outranks the actual caretaking of the occupants, more often than not.  The sweeping architectural line outranks the well-proportioned, convenient, soul-satisfying closet space FOR SURE.

I think I saw a farm of FEMA trailers as I watched Myrtle Beach disappear.

Here's something else that makes little sense:  routing travelers from DC to Myrtle Beach through Detroit.

I used to write in really short sentences.  No, really.  And people would say, "Huh?"  Now I write in really long sentences.  Unless I have time to go in and tighten up.  See post below about rough drafts.  But, in a trend in trend-spotting spotted by Entrepreneur magazine--I kid . . .  The trend now is way against rough drafts.

People still say, "huh?"

Moral:  don't show the rough draft to ANYONE.

Write it, though.

I kinda have to wonder why spell check is asking . . .

I really do observe time and current events here on Planet Jane; I just extrapolate quite extensively once I've done so.

Obama won the election; I spent the rest of the week doing my level best for my wonderful clients; and the following Tuesday I flew to South Carolina to learn more about some organizing software I sell.  Also in that mix were efforts to ride herd on various Presbyterians--now THERE'S an interesting line of work.

My pastor gave me an enlightening answer about what my church is, by way of answering what I'm about as an Elder of my church.  The enlightening part was what she said a church is not.  Not a business, not a school, not the government.  So I asked whether it was safe to say that what we do as church managers is change things until the complaining is minimized.  She agreed to that, but she has since agreed to other versions of reality, so I think it's going to continue to be interesting.  Interesting being a Chinese curse, of course.

When I vented a bit to some folks I chat with online--a group called Faithful Organizers--I was given the following algorithm:  The Lord only asks for one day in seven.

HA!

The Lord, of course, is infinitely reasonable, in my experience.  Among moderns, a day is 8 hours.  We need 8 for sleeping, and 8 for eating, bathing, driving, going to the grocery store, doing the laundry, and cooking eels for our children.  (Although I should probably check that Bible verse again.)

Call it 10.  A hard worker puts in 10-hour days.

I was at 9.5 pure at-church time as of 8 p.m. Wednesday, and was feeling substantial pressure to show up for an officers' retreat for another 8 or 9 hours starting Friday evening.  Honestly, I wanted to do it, but more than that I wanted to be fair to my family, and they weren't prepared for more Mommy-absence time.  At any rate, the fact that I think I might have tonsillitis just about trumps everything.  Although there's a good chance I'll go to church again tomorrow anyway.

Something else the pastor agreed to is that something we can be fairly sure we're doing well is putting on good services.  Now, are the complaints minimized about these services?  I kind of think so, even if you count the 150 votes for "it should be done MY way."  The organization might just dry up, crumble, and blow away if more and more people don't start finding their way to those services and finding them to be an offering they have need of (which they will, if they get there).

Fixing that is going to take an overhaul of just about everything else, in my never-to-be-humble opinion.  A church that could sincerely promise that even its officers only have a 10-hour week asked of them would be sustainable; whereas a church that blithely asks for 16-20 hours a week does not seem to be.

It's all in the management.

Anybody want to buy some software?

Earlier I talked about a keynote speech I heard at my organizers' conference in April.  I have since been reminded that her name is Karen McCullough.  She gave us an exercise:  think of words people apply to you.  Decide whether you like those words.  If not, think of words you prefer.  I don't remember if "loving" or "funny" came to me this way, but "wise" did.  Every once in a while people have said that I am "smart," but I don't find myself wanting to define my business self that way.  For one thing, I've worked with people who were really, really, really smart.  I wouldn't want their jobs.  "Wise" I like.

I spent my freshman year of college at Mount Holyoke, which, founded in 1837, is the oldest women's college in the country.  I had trouble keeping up--I've since come to believe I had an eighth-grade reading level--and I transferred to a school down the road, Hampshire.

Hampshire College was founded in 1970; it was and I believe still is all about experimentation.  As hard a time as I'd had learning how to learn at Mount Holyoke, my stint at Hampshire was an absolute disaster.  I transferred back to Mount Holyoke, and continued to persevere in my quest to no longer be ignorant.

I started school at the age of 3, first entered Mount Holyoke in 1975 at 18, and did not finally end my formal education until 1990, when I received my PhD from Harvard.  I submit to you that I know as much about schooling as anyone out there--even if my particular comprehension of the elephant is nothing more than familiarity with its silken floppy ears.

Some declarations I made along the way and still agree with:

# When I started back at Mount Holyoke in 1977, I said and possibly even wrote somewhere that humans had been experimenting with education since the days of Charlemagne and before.  Just because you announce that you are getting experimental doesn't especially bring you any closer to discovering anything not already known.

# There is nothing that can take the place of a human teacher interacting, in the flesh, with a human student.

# The fact that America is trying--attempting--to provide all its citizens with a public education, no matter who they are or how much money they have, is an indispensable part of America's greatness.

# I managed to graduate from the American public school system with a 12th-grade diploma but only an eighth-grade reading level.

And the declaration I find myself making nowadays is that, barring special circumstances, home schooling is simply another experiment that has already been tried and moved beyond.

I can't always deconstruct my own declarations, and this last one is based not only on my long years of schooling, but on the so far still brief sojourns of my sons through our local schools.  So it is complex.  And it is very deeply held.

There are those who want there to be professional organizers but amateur teachers, or at least having only thought about it shallowly, they think they do.  To be fair, there are also those who imagine there is anything that can take the place of a human adult providing parenting to a human child, and there isn't.  And the vast majority of parents have no choice but to start their jobs as amateurs.  But they are very different jobs, parenting and teaching.  And the parent who thinks he or she can take the place of the dozens of other people who will teach a child even in pre-college school commits the sin of pride.

As I've implied, the system is as leaky as a seive.  I pity the child whose parents put complete, trusting, hands-off faith in their local schools.  But I fear more for the communities in which honest and dedicated teachers don't have parents' support, or even their attention.

The ears of the elephant.  There is more to it, I'm sure . . .

Ha!  Got your attention, didn't I??

It is otherwise a completely insincere title.  Titties have 2 major jobs; they are driven by biology, and try as we might, they will never really have new uses.

We do seem to try, though.  I saw a young woman today wearing a top that exposed the entire inner side of her breasts.  The top gave her small breasts a significance they might never have enjoyed otherwise, but the overall effect didn't give the young woman any particular signicance.  Were those words she was speaking?  I'm a heterosexual woman, and even I was too distracted to be certain.  Imagine if I were a complete bosom enthusiast . . .

What I'm contending is that she was trying to recruit her breasts to an enhancement of her whole status as a person.  What else could someone be doing with this display in the post-feminist era?

Was she advertising her fertility?  Maybe the idea is having biological fertility be an unconscious stand-in for intellectual or creative fertility.  Not remembering her words, though, one couldn't tell.

Did she need to be ready to breast-feed at any moment?

It didn't seem so.

But those jobs dispensed with, there really wasn't much else the breasts seemed prepared to do.

The organizer in me agitates for putting away what isn't being used.

It's part of finding it when you need it.