[S]tories hold power because they convey the illusion that life has purpose and direction. . . . Stories make sense when so much around us is senseless, and perhaps what makes them most comforting is that, while life goes on and pain goes on, stories do us the favor of ending.
You Don’t Say
One of our exercises in Crucial Conversations training was to “think of a person who is really frustrating to work with,” and to describe in writing a recent interaction with that person in terms of what was actually said, and what you were thinking or feeling but didn’t say.
My responses included the following:
- What I Actually Said
- This project presents some unique challenges.
- What I Didn’t Say
- I have a lot of experience managing IT projects, but not in running a day care center or a mental institution, which is what this project requires.
- What I Actually Said
- That’s not quite the way I would have phrased it.
- What I Didn’t Say
- Everyone else in these meetings seems to feel constrained by a sense of professionalism and decency that you appear not to possess.
One of my colleagues at our table of four claimed that based on those responses, she could identify the person I was writing about.
Since she and I and the person in question have never worked on anything together, I said she couldn’t, but much to my amazement, she did.
A Paradox
When we give up trying to convince, we become more convincing.
So — I should give up trying to convince in an effort to become more convincing?
Will They Pay My Relo?
Iced Tea and Lemonade
Arnold Palmer may have won a lot of golf tournaments, but his greatest accomplishment in my opinion was to say, “Hey, let’s mix some lemonade in with the iced tea.”
Nothing better on a hot day!
Thanks, Arnie!
Chick’s vs. Dick’s
Last year, Dick’s Sporting Goods bought Chick’s Sporting Goods. According to the Orange County Register, the four Chick’s locations in Orange County, including the one in Tustin that I shop at, will all be replaced by Dick’s by the second half of 2009.
I’m not happy about this. Oh, I know there are people who like Dick’s, and there are people who are 50-50 on the matter and can go either way, but there are also a lot of people like me who really prefer Chick’s.
In fact, I’ve been doing Chick’s for so long that I don’t see how I’m ever going to get used to Dick’s.
Sarah Palin
As Warner Baxter said to Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street:
You’re going out there a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star!
Finally, a breath of fresh Alaskan air!
Not yet another Ivy League lawyer, yet another warmed-over political hack, yet another condescending, posturing, preening, pandering, pontificating blowhard who’s lost sight of the fact that politicians are employees. We hire them, we pay them, we give them trillions of dollars to spend any way they want to . . . if we didn’t hold them to such ridiculously low standards of accountability, it might be easier to remember who works for whom.
And hockey moms are hot! Why? Because hockey’s an expensive sport, so hockey dads have to knock down a pretty good income, which in our materialistic society allows them to be more selective in the spouse department.
My wife is sort of a hockey mom, in that she has a kid who plays hockey, even though she hardly ever goes to the games or the practices.
But she supports McCain-Palin! And she’s looking forward to seeing Mrs. Palin kick Joe Biden’s ass in the vice-presidential debate.
“Argue with a woman?!” she shouts, shaking both fists in the air. “HA HA HA! You are just going to lose and lose!”
What We Choose
I am so beautiful, sometimes people weep when they see me. And it has nothing to do with what I look like really, it is just that I gave myself the power to say that I am beautiful, and if I could do that, maybe there is hope for them too. And the great divide between the beautiful and the ugly will cease to be. Because we are all what we choose.
Little-Known College Football Fact of the Week
Kentucky and Louisville play each other for the Governor’s Cup.
Why the governor needs to wear a cup I don’t know, nor can I figure out why anybody else would want it.
“Congratulations, boys!” the governor says, reaching into his trousers. “I’ve got a little something for you. And it ain’t fried chicken!”
How I Met Your Mother
From Michelle “There is no safety net for anybody” Obama’s DNC speech:
You know, what struck me when I first met Barack was that even though he had this funny name, even though he’d grown up all the way across the continent in Hawaii, his family was so much like mine. He was raised by grandparents who were working class folks just like my parents, and by a single mother who struggled to pay the bills just like we did.
Well . . . if you take all that at face value — and why wouldn’t you? — it only goes to show how shallow I am, because what struck me when I first met my wife was what a nice ass she had.
Thoughts on the DNC
I never have been able to buy into the whole liberal worldview — as expressed by Michelle “Our souls are broken in this nation” Obama and James “We are an 80 percent wrong-track country” Carville — where nobody ever has a nice day, everything is always wrong, vote for us and we’ll fix it all immediately . . . then not only do they not fix anything, they actually make everything worse, taking away another batch of precious freedoms and hard-earned dollars in the process . . .
I Love Money
As my kid and I were watching Beverly Hills Cop on VH1 last night, we kept seeing ads for a show called I Love Money, in which fat, unattractive people are having a spitting contest for distance.
Two questions: What is the target market for this — fat, ugly spitters and the people who love them? And a question I wonder about a lot: Were people this stupid before television?
How Not to Succeed in Business
Come to the office on a weekend — when you’re not allowed to be there — not to work, but to store some of your personal belongings. Fall down a flight of stairs. Then file a worker’s comp claim.
I’m not saying I know someone who actually did this . . .
A Business Model for Selling Crack
My wife loves to keep bags from the grocery store. Why does she love to keep bags from the grocery store? Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better if you haven’t been drinking tequila all afternoon like I have.
My son walks into the kitchen . . .
He says, “We’ve got enough bags here to open our own store.”
“Good idea!” I reply. “You know what we’re going to sell? All the crap laying around in your room.”
“For a second,” he says, “I thought you said ‘crack.'”
“Crack . . . hey, that’s a good idea too! Ordinarily, you want to buy crack, you’ve got to go hang out on a street corner in some undesirable location. We’ll bring upscale ambiance to the crack business. ‘Paper or plastic?’ Who would suspect you’re toting crack around in that Trader Joe’s bag?”
You Gotta Have Heart
My son’s going into 10th grade and he’s started to go out in boy-girl groups . . .
“Whoever he has for a girlfriend,” my wife says, “has to have a good heart. Has to be very giving. Because he’s an only child so he’s used to it being all about him.”
“Do you think you have a good heart?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“You don’t think you’re a little bit too aggressively angry pretty much every day?”
“That’s not about heart.”
“What is it?”
“You don’t think you’re a little too annoying? Same thing.”
Watching Olympic Women’s Weightlifting with a 10th Grader
“These women look worse than the Australian basketball team,” the boy says.
“Some of them would be cute,” I say, “if they lost about 150 pounds.”
An eHarmony commercial comes on . . .
We prescreen candidates for compatibility . . .
“Good,” the boy says, “because I don’t want to date any women weightlifters.”
PostSecret
Watching Olympic Women’s Basketball with a 10th Grader
The Australian team has some rather unfortunate-looking women on the roster . . .
“Crikey!” the boy says. “Wot an oy-sore!”
Watching Olympic Equestrian with a 10th Grader
“Dum dee dum dee dum. Let’s go for a pony ride!”
Peter Pan, Snow White Arrested at Disneyland
They’re having a labor dispute over at the Magic Kingdom — complete with costumed protestors — which resulted in Peter Pan, Snow White, Cinderella, Tinkerbell and others being handcuffed, frisked and stuffed into the paddy wagon yesterday . . .