Until I went to a speechwriters’ conference I’d never given much thought to metaphors and similes. But now I see them everywhere. Like a fruit fly on a plastic orange is a simile. I know that now because the sentence contains the word “like.” Evidently, I didn’t pay much attention to that part of my English classes. “Good” writers use metaphors and similes to tell great stories. I use them as rarely as snow falls in August, and therefore rather badly. My storytelling is pithy and clipped, a style honed from years of corporate writing. Corporate writing is the Acela train from Washington to New York – it’s all about getting to your destination as fast as possible. That is changing. The current rage at work for engaging employees who are too busy to pay attention to your messaging is tell them good stories with fluffy words and memorable metaphors. This is making me as uncomfortable as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I think it’s something I can learn, but boy, it’s not at all easy for me! It will be fun to teach this old dog new tricks. I promise I won’t torture you, dear blog readers, while I’m on the learning curve.
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In my 8th grade yearbook, I said I wanted to be a microbiologist or an art teacher. This is funny because my mother was a microbiologist and very creative. Clearly, she was the first and most influential person in my life that made me think I could be a scientist. And actually, scientists are some of the most creative people I know. But there was one other significant nudge towards a career in science. It’s the book in the photo: The Story of Madame Curie. I’m not sure what age I was when I read this, but I remember thinking, “WOW; a woman discovered radium! And she won the Nobel Prize!” Even with a college-educated mother with a science degree, it was the 60’s and I somehow understood that women in science wasn’t always a given, or at least uncommon. I went off to college thinking I wanted medical technology. In my freshman year I fell in love with chemistry – or at least ‘in like’ with my chemistry professor. I’d had chemistry in high school, and didn’t like it; amazing the difference the teacher can make. When I was close to completing my chemistry degree I started thinking about medical school and while I was somewhat daunted by the commitment to that much more education, I eventually realized that being a doctor would not suit my perfectionist personality. I couldn’t imagine being sued for a death when I knew I gave the care my very best effort. Not long after that, I discovered industrial hygiene – a field that protects employee from illness in workplaces. It was the perfect blend of chemistry with medicine (health). And it was not just a little ironic to me that Madame Curie died of aplastic anemia, most likely caused by her long-term exposure to radioactivity – a work-related illness. It was like I’d gone full circle. One more irony to my early admiration of Madame Curie…one of her more well-known quotes is, “Have no fear of perfection; you’ll never reach it.” Exactly why I’m not a doctor today! ![]() Ten years ago a woman traveling 48 mph in the fast lane drove past three fully stopped cars and a school bus in the lane to her right and then blew through a red traffic light that had been red so long the fourth vehicle from the other direction was already in the intersection. She never even touched her brakes before broadsiding that fourth vehicle, killing a 12-year old boy. How did that happen? How could she not notice the traffic next to her at a full stop, the red light or the three cars already through the intersection? You are probably thinking she was drunk. She was not. She was stone cold sober and talking on her hands free phone. This is my PSA (Public Service Announcement) on why you should immediately stop talking on your phone when you are driving. The scientific proof is becoming more and more compelling. Johnson & Johnson brought in a speaker from the National Safety Council who presented facts for 45 minutes. J&J is one of the few companies that has a policy banning the use of cell phones for our fleet vehicle drivers. This is some of what I learned: 1. You are four times more likely to get hurt in a crash while talking on your cell. 2. There is NO DIFFERENCE in the number of crashes between hand-held and hands-free!! 3. Cell phone drivers have more crashes and slower reaction times than drunk drivers (0.08)! 4. It is estimated that 26% of all crashes involve cell phones. What’s going on? Well, people think if their eyes are on the road and their hands are on the wheel, they are safe. Cognitive psychologists disagree. Your mind must also be engaged and your brain fools you. Most of us think we can multi-task and that it’s no different than driving with a passenger in the car. This is simply not so. If you are on the phone, your mind is not fully engaged in driving. Here’s the explanation for how that woman driver broadsided a car that should have been obvious to her: Cognitive distraction results in two forms of visual distraction: 1. Inattention blindness – You are looking ahead at something but don’t see it at all. This is born out in simulators all the time. (She didn’t see the red traffic light, nor three other cars going through the intersection.) Most cell phone crashes are people on their phone hitting something directly in front of them. 2. Tunnel vision – You stop scanning the road and actively identifying potential hazards. (Her visual field was so small, she didn’t even see the three stopped cars and a school bus on her right.) In the last 10 years, we have seen the arrival of airbags, 87% seat belt use, stability controlled cars, anti-lock brakes, cross over barrier, rumble strips and graduated driver licenses…so many safety improvements for drivers. Yet the fatality rate is holding steady at 100 people per day. What if every day this week an airplane crashed somewhere in the country killing 100 people? We’d never stand for that. A Quinnipiac survey showed that 63% of voters support a ban on cell phone use while driving, even hands-free. Please don’t wait for a law. Stay off the phone when you are driving! So said Longfellow. And tonight it’s a true statement. It’s gusting up to 50 mph. The house creaks and pops like my knees. The screens rattle, but I think I’ve defeated the noisy one in my bedroom by shimming it with two old hotel room card keys that I walked off with by mistake. Since it’s the tail end of winter, there are no loose yard things that could launch, but I do worry about the trees around me. None should be able to hit the house, but tree damage always makes me sad and of course, creates a mess. It’s dark in the morning when I leave, so I won’t be able to assess my yard until after work. I always think I’ll hear the crack and then thump of a big tree falling, but really all I hear is the wind itself.
As a homeowner then, I’m a little on edge when the wind blows this hard. But if I set those fears aside, I rather like being out in a strong, dramatic wind. It’s the wildness that appeals to me. Or maybe the ions. Not sure if they are positive or negative, but I think this kind of wind enhances one of them. And it either causes more crime or puts people at ease. Snopes has probably investigated ion claims, but it’s not something I will bother looking up. If you like the wind, it should follow that you like kites and sailing. Yes and somewhat. I actually love kites and I have a stunt kite that looks like a giant koi. But to fly a kite you need a steady wind, not a gusty one – that’s why I mostly use my kite at the shore. I researched the wind profiles at my house while investigating the installation of a windmill for power. I can’t do solar (reference first paragraph about my many trees!). But it turns out I can’t do wind power either – too little sustained wind at any reasonable height for a home windmill. As for sailing…I took lessons on a gusty lake for a few weeks and I was discouraged because the gusts and shifting directions made it so hard to learn. Unless there was a very strong wind blowing my hair, I had no idea which direction the wind was coming from. The wind and I have made our peace. Now I let my hair blow wild and pretend I’m a model. ![]() Who's there? Alma. Alma who? Alma Easter candy is gone. Can I have some more? I don’t have a ton of memories about Easter, but that knock-knock joke was one of them. Easter was a religious holiday, and one that made a big impression on me because an ordinary man died and came back to life three days later. That’s a heck of a story for a kid. It’s the story that Catholicism was built on. Jesus was seen multiple times after his resurrection and by crowds of people at the same time. If the Romans had taken the body from the tomb, wouldn’t they have produced it to stop the rapid growth of Christianity they inadvertently sparked? It didn’t seem likely Jesus’ followers took the body either as they were severely tortured and executed and yet no body was ever produced. I remember our Easters for a couple things… church being one of them. Of course, before church there were surprise Easter baskets left by the Easter Bunny – with dyed eggs that looked suspiciously like the ones we dyed a few days earlier. And after church we went to my Grandmother’s for Easter dinner. My German grandmother always made a lamb cake – a buttery pound cake with nothing more than powdered sugar on it. I wish I had her mold. I have her recipe, so maybe I’ll google for the mold sometime. Knock, knock! Who's there? Boo. Boo who? Don’t cry; Easter Bunny will be back again next year. I got asked to play hooky for a day and go to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia with some friends. I’ve never been there! Let me see if I can clear my calendar. It was an automatic response. I like to think that I am up for most new things. Life is amazing and there is so much to see, learn and do that I’m going to be quite ticked off when I die. In 2014, my ‘word of the year’ was ‘new”. I challenged myself to do something new every day. As I did new things, I wrote them down on a scrap of paper and threw them in a jar. At the end of the year I read them all on New Year’s Eve. It was fun to do all that remembering and remarkable how much we actually do ‘new’ all the time without necessarily noting its newness. New might be as memorable as, “I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time.” But a lot of my ‘new’ was ordinary – I ate an anchovy (by dreadful mistake, but it still counted) or I fixed a sink plunger. Wait, that hasn’t actually happened yet – but I do have it planned for today.
I like the notion of being deliberate each day – to decide that I will either do something new or go somewhere new. I know that every weekend I have to do laundry and treat the hot tub – things that have been routine for years and have to get done. And I tend to do them the same way every weekend. But I’ve never filled my washing machine with each piece of clothing a carefully aimed basketball lob. Nor have I treated the hot tub while still in my robe. Neither of these things prove much of anything except that I am alive and not bored for a minute. OK, I have million things to do with the rest of my day. When I put my head on the pillow at the end of the day I’m sure I will have either gone new places or done new things. It’s a grand life. ![]() A couple friends and I were in Philly today talking about foods you miss when you move away. One, who spent time in Los Angeles sorely missed a favorite pasta with clam sauce. Another, currently living in Washington (the state) was just glad to be back on the East Coast for our great bagels and pizza. When I moved down to Louisiana, the thing I wanted in Care packages was Tastykakes -- The Cake That Made Mother Stop Baking. I grew up with them as occasional lunchbag snacks. They were various cakes wrapped in twos and threes -- Krimpets, Tandy Kakes, chocolate cupcakes and fruit pies. They are made in Philadelphia and originally, only distributed in the Philly area -- which included my hometown. It wasn't like I was buying them in NJ all that much, but when I moved away, I suddenly missed them a lot. I started carrying some back to Louisiana after my trips home. They are not even the most awesome cakes ever... they just said home. After four years in Baton Rouge, I moved back to NJ and oh boy, I miss so many things! The food in Louisiana was amazing and unique. I miss good biscuits and gravy, Popeye's Fried Chicken (down there you don't have to specify "spicy"; it's assumed), dirty rice, jambalaya and beignets. To name a few. And hurricanes. The alcoholic beverage, not the storm. And red beans and rice. And cochon du lait. Like I said, there are so many good foods down there and making them myself just isn't the same. Of course, it's also true that I added five years back onto my lifetime by moving away. If I left NJ again, I'd be missing the bagels and pizza... and Italian food in general. We have great Italian food around here. The friends I was with swore that the water the bagels are cooked in is part of the secret of a good bagel, though nobody was sure why. OK. Now I'm hungry. I was never very good at complex concepts in physics. I remember simple things like F=ma: Force is equal to Mass times Acceleration. For some reason, that was the second thing I thought of after face-planting while running. The first thought was, naturally, "Ohmygod, did anyone see me?" I've never tripped while running, but holy cow, it came out of nowhere and happened fast. My current Mass (15 pounds heavier than desired) and my Acceleration that day (I have blistering speed when I run) equalled a Force of HolyCrapThatHurt.
I quickly and gratefully determined that no-one saw me fall. I was on Rutgers campus, and it was early morning and every self-respecting college kid was still in bed. I'll bet there were some guys in the RU security office that had a good laugh if they happened to be looking at the right security camera, but they didn't roll a patrol car to check on the body since I got up right away and started walking. Nothing wrong here. Ow. I'm fine. Ow, ow, ow. I think my knee is bleeding. Ow. It took me about two blocks to do a severity assessment all the parts that hurt and conclude that I would live. In the next block, I reminded myself that real athletes in the NYC and Boston marathons have stumbled and fallen too. nope, I'm not a clutz. Ow. Ow. You know, real athletes would start running again. Ow. I started trotting again with a renewed emphasis on picking up my feet and increased awareness of sidewalk cracks. I thought if I could trot, I'd get back to the gym faster -- to inspect and lick my wounds (so to speak) in the light. I blame my new blaze orange sneakers. I hypothesize that the color had no actual bearing on my fall, but I was looking pretty cool in them right up until I face-planted. This was just my second run in these Saucony's. On the first run I thought they felt a little 'strange' and sure enough, my shins hurt the next day. Since I fell on the second run, clearly the sneakers are broken and it's their fault. It will be a few days before I run again because a number of things hurt, including my pride. But I just thought you'd like to know the laws of physics are intact in case you haven't tested them in a while. Why is that when we do something good, we feel licensed to do something bad? I ran three miles yesterday, so I felt entitled to a bagel with cream cheese. I saved $12.43 through selective shopping of sale items so I splurged on some fresh flowers. Or I drink a diet soda with a cheeseburger. How do we ever get ahead if good habits become excuses for bad ones? Believe it or not, social psychologists and marketers call this behavior self-licensing or moral self-licensing. It’s a Thing!! And the marketers use it against us! Buy our luxury, gas-guzzling SUV and we’ll take $1,000 off the price and give it to Children’s Hospital.
Yikes. I am apparently morally weak. I am an environmental professional that believes in climate change and yet I would not give up my hot tub because I have converted to LED lights in many places and replaced leaky windows with energy-efficient ones. But since I have LED lights, I confess I sometimes am casual about leaving them on because they are so much more energy efficient. I hate that this is a Thing and I am as guilty of it as everyone else. How very human. But I suppose consciousness of our vulnerability to this way of thinking is probably the best way to limit its more deleterious effects. I am air-drying my clothes today AND donating some things I no longer wear to the thrift shop WITHOUT buying those cute new pair of shoes I've had my eye on. That was a question put to a panel of writers. I thought it was a great interview question and one that I’ve filed away for future use. I don’t remember any specific answers from the panel members that stood out as unusual, but I did burn some brain cells thinking about how I might have answered that.
Careers have many turning points, only some of which are in your control. Probably the one thing I did that increased my corporate survivability was learning to ‘suffer fools gladly’…to have more patience with people who didn’t meet my [ridiculous] standards. It took observing someone else not suffering fools gladly to realize it’s not a becoming, success-oriented behavior. Alas, no-one has died yet and made me King. The other smart thing I did for my career was owning my own development, and not leaving it up to my boss or my company. I have worked for great companies and they have given me lots of development – training meetings, conferences, paying for my certifications, etc. But when I developed an interest not on their agenda, I pursued it on my own. I read about it in my free time and I went out and talked to people doing it. Ultimately, when my boss declined my request to go to an emerging conference on the topic, I took vacation time, frequent flyer miles and the hospitality of a friend in Houston to attend anyway. It was a clear turning point for me. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your career has nothing to do with your job. It might just be your side-job…the thing you make time for outside work. Serving on the Board of my Watershed Association right now is proving very energizing, even if paradoxically it’s taking a lot of time. It’s giving me different perspectives and adding skills I’m not collecting in my current job. Time will tell if or how the volunteer side-job benefits the current paying one, but that was never my intent. I’m just following my interests. |
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July 2017
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Pizza Sprinkles
Because it's much more fun than asking for red pepper flakes.