those who were seen dancing

Waiting for data migration to finish. I'm sitting at the office listening to a series of songs that all sound like DDR tunes. I miss DDR, but I'm not enthusiastic about housed-up Madonna versions of "American Pie".

I can, however, totally imagine that this particular stretch of music would feature a lot of center-right-center-left steps followed by a series of jumps and spins.

Oh, but wait. Here's "Beat It". That's better.

I bought mats for my trunk room so I can have a matted room again [90 year old floor is cool, but a recipe for ass splinters when you're doing yoga on the floor, and Prasara does not confine itself well to a yoga mat.]. Between the mats and the camp fuel [Hey! I have a yard! I can have my own fuel and fire toys!], I ran into a series of boyfriend-themed tshirts.

This is kinda cute and ironic. It was grouped with other Nike shirts, one of which said "Your boyfriend likes my game". Like. Seriously? Does even women's sporting trash talk need to be about men? What about OUR MOMS? "Your mom likes my game" (now with 10% more lesbian innuendo); I think that's better. Cause you know there aren't any dude's shirts about girlfriends.

I suppose there's an alternate reading of the shirt, too - it could be a "feminist" critique of women being focused on men & being pretty or something: you know, sport-boyfriend woman vs. man-obsessed woman. In which case, I'm actively disgusted rather than the amused sort of offended I'd be in response to my original reading.

I've been struggling for a couple of weeks to put into words how weird it is to work with all dudes suddenly. Most of them claim to not notice that they're in a room full of dudes, for one [I can understand that - without someone pointing it out, there are many ways I wouldn't notice my own majority/privilegedness.], although I suspect from their initial circumspection and silence that they are lying.

It's weird in a surprisingly pleasant way, though. The lack of other women coincides with a general absence of gender-role-play. That thing mixed-gender groups (at least mixed-gender white people groups, which is where I've seen it) do where they divide along gender roles, and there's supposed to be some kind of kinship with your own gender... not happening here. I'm not reminded of any perceived affiliation with All Women Everywhere, so in some ways my network affiliation seems more pure: I am primarily affiliated with the team, the project, the work. It's as if gender doesn't exist in this bubble of the team. It's. I mean. It's strange. It's as if I've inherited that whole male-privilege thing.

By the way. No one has said anything that directly offended me in any way; it occurs to me that more often than not it's been the women at work who've managed to push my fat queer feminist liberal buttons. Men, if anything, are curious about those things. Which. Well, duh.

Stay tuned for: 1000 ways in which I am culturally insensitive and refuse to let my Indian peeps call me "ma'am" and "boss". I'm not kidding. My metaphors and mannerisms are so influenced by American popular culture that I have to work harder to be understood (that is, to not be a jackass). Meanwhile, the guys are accustomed to a more hierarchical model in which I am the boss, so they won't admit that they have no idea what the hell I'm talking about.

I've never managed to keep a to-do list at home. I get tired and exasperated when dealing with "organization". But I've been coaching at work for awhile, and I finally, after a sense of mounting stress and impending DOOOOOOOM, made a teeny step just by making the stuff I think has to get done more visible & putting it on the back of my door. TADA. Turns out I'm not really THAT busy, just convinced enough that I am - and often subsequently paralyzed.

There are probably more lessons I could be taking from this into my non-Agile program at the office, too. I'll have to keep sitting with that.

I am a nerd.

I just laughed aloud at an ALAN GREENSPAN LOL.

The possibly positive impact of my current work situation (summarizable as ARGH) and a conversation I had with the SSWB at lunch today have me thinking a lot about what I want to be when I grow up.

And you know what? I don't know. Nor do I even remember what it was like to have a plan, to be a long-term-planning kinda person. This is really odd for me. A lot of you haven't known me since my deeply planful days, but some of you can remember.

So I wonder about y'all.
[Poll #955225]
Bonus question... what do you want to do when you grow up?

A woman at work last week guessed that the guys who got onto the elevator must be going to the fourth floor (our buildings generally don't have more than four floors). She said "men don't get on the elevator unless they're going all the way". I'm pretty sure she's wrong. Also, I sadly didn't pick up the unintentional innuendo until just now. That's awfully slow.

Then today I waved at someone as I got on the elevator and he went up the stairs (both headed to the third floor - I won). And I thought not about the gender assumption, but the idea that stair climbing is some sort of testament to one's Fitness. We commonly apologize to each other for taking elevators. It's this wacky Official Corporate America Wisdom: climbing the stairs will save your immortal soul... or at least your mortal cardiovascular system.

And I? Am rather ridiculously defensive about this in my head. I want a sign: I am taking the elevator because I danced for 3 hours last night. Did you dance all last night? STFU. Whether there's any actual indication of this or not, I suspect random people I don't know of believing that I - and all even remotely fat folk by extension - am lazy and Unfit because I don't take the stairs. And... I care. I want them to not think wrong, stupid things. Chances are, no one's thinking this in any direct, conscious, point-and-stare-at-me way. If they were doing anything so obvious, I'd probably notice, and you know if I noticed I'd have to call it out. I suspect them of thinking these things deep down, and I just know these thoughts are so far off base, know they (and I shouldn't care anyway), know how little you can actually extrapolate anything other than what a person is going to be doing in two minutes from what she's doing right now, know that what I do or don't do and how Fit any of us are matters in no way to anyone else (or at least it shouldn't).

I suspect the thing with the food list might work like this, too. If I want to eat nothing but vegan cookies for the next 30 days, I should be able to just do it and not have people tell me it's unhealthy or healthy or fit or unfit or any of the other intrusive crap we like to foist on each other. But rarely is that possible - people do police each others' food all too often. It masquerades as concern - hell, it is concern - but it's misplaced and confused.

In other news: I think I totally eat more than everyone who posts on incendiaryfood. Rock!
( This is the sign that goes with my food. It matches the sign about the stairs thing. )

The bankers list sent me this article today Apparently workers spend less time on identifiably work tasks, if you ask AOL job seekers (which might be a bit of a population bias, ya know).

All the press on this sort of thing is always all "ooooh, workers are laaaazy", but I think it may actually be a good sign - like, people have a little bit more feeling of self-determination. Even when their work isn't structured that way and the self-determination is rebellious.

Texas is an hour behind us. California is three hours behind us. There are timezones. Which are different. Across the US.

I think people in California - heck, people everywhere - should just live on my time. I don't care if they have to get up and work in the dark and sleep in the day. There are eastcoasters who work nights, after all. None of them seem particularly scarred for life.

Of course I'm joking, but it sometimes seems like I have some sort of special problem with understanding what time it is in more than one place at a time. I'm working on a project with some people in California and others in Texas, and I keep having to reschedule meetings and work slightly odd days because of this - like, I'll think "10AM is a perfectly reasonable meeting time" and then remember it's actually 7AM for someone. And this morning I tried to schedule a meeting at 8AM my time thinking that was 9AM Texas time. It's not. It's 7, too. No reasonable person works at 7, and if they do, it's to catch up on the work they missed while going to all those meetings.

But it's not just me.

There are tons of business-related books, classes, and such on just this topic - one of the most awkward things about teams at multiple locations is this logistical stuff; the what time is its and how is the weathers of life. Clearly knowing what time it is everywhere else is the future. [Hmm, that sounds funny.]